


Phase One: MechAvengers Assemble

by DarkFairytale



Series: The Marvel Mecha Universe [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Brainwashing, Gen, M/M, Mecha, Mecha Loki, Mecha Natasha, Mecha Steve, Mecha Thor, Memory Loss, Organ Transplantation, Prostitution, Robot/Human Relationships, cyborg tony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 01:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19163419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: There was an idea, called the MechAvengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable artificial people, to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together to make the world accept Mecha and artificiality, by fighting the battles that humans never could. So Nick Fury's job was to recruit eight artificials to the MechAvengers Initiative:- A genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist Cyborg.- A Human genius with an unseverable psychological connection to a giant fighter-bot with rage issues.- Two Enhanced Mecha that were created to believe they were gods, and have the powers to match.- An Adapted Human archer who had incredible aim evenbeforegaining an artificial eye with a target system.- A Mecha that was created to be an Android assassin before gaining sentience after being exposed to the Dark Web.- And the Original Mecha, the first and only of his kind, who has been shut down and MIA for the last seventy years.Sure, this was going to be easy.





	Phase One: MechAvengers Assemble

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Welcome to the Marvel Mecha Universe! This fic (and some of its terminology/plot points) was inspired by films/television series such as AI: Artificial Intelligence, Repo Men, the Alien franchise, Humans, I, Robot, Westworld etc. etc.
> 
> Part 1 of this series - 'CAPT-AI-N (America): The First Mecha' - is about Steve's origin story, which is also covered in the first chapter here, so 'CAPT-AI-N (America): The First Mecha' is not essential reading for this fic. Thanks to everyone who read Cap's story and has been waiting so patiently for this next part, I hope the wait will be worth it for you!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

 

_Confidential File_

_Director Nick Fury_

_The MechAvengers Initiative_

_S.H.I.E.L.D (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division)_

_A.R.M.E.D (Artificial Reestablishment, Management and Engagement Department)_

_**OFFICIAL INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATIONS:** _

_**Human:** Human with no significant robotic/artificial adaptations or biomechatronic parts_   
_**Adapted Human:** Human with robotic/artificial adaptation of less than 30% of vital body and organs (incl. Artificial Organs, robotic/biomechatronic limbs etc.)_   
_**Cyborg:** Human with both organic and significant biomechatronic parts (over 30% of vital body and organs)_   
_**Android:** Insentient humanoid robot, incapable of own thoughts/decisions **  
Mecha:** Sentient humanoid androids capable of making own decisions/ artificial consciousness_   
_**Enhanced Mecha:** Sentient Mecha enhanced by exposure to illegal programs (i.e. Dark Web, Bifrost, Deep Space)_   
_**Original Mecha:** Human consciousness implanted inside an artificial/android body (only 2 known cases)_   
_**Robot:** Insentient machines, mostly programmed by computers_   
_**AI (Artificial Intelligence)** : Computer systems _

__

****

**_PROPOSED CANDIDATES FOR THE MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE:_ **

* * *

 

Tony Stark – aka. Iron Man

 

Tony Stark was a lot of things. Billionaire, playboy, genius and philanthropist were the favourites he liked to use when describing himself.

‘Visionary, genius, American patriot.’ That’s what the Apogee Awards had had to say of him, when Rhodey had forced him to watch the footage of the award ceremony that he hadn’t bothered attending.

‘Son of a legendary weapons developer’, they had said. ‘Had taken over _Stark Industries_ as CEO at the age of twenty-one after the death of his father’, they said. He got that a lot, in the beginning. ‘Son of Howard Stark’. Son of the great inventor, engineer and businessman, Howard Stark. Son of the founder of _Stark Industries_ , son of the co-founder of _Stark and Stane AO_ , son of the co-creator of the very first Mecha, CAPT-AI-N (America). Howard Stark had even coined the phrase ‘Mecha’, which was now used as a classification worldwide. He had been a hero inventor of the Great Technology War. The ‘son of Howard Stark’ had stuck with Tony for a long time, but then Tony had started making waves of his own.

And sure, some now called Tony an American Patriot. But others called him a warmonger and murderer because of _Stark Industries_ ’ weapons development. Others now called him a visionary for his work with AI, mechanical enhancements, Cyborg anatomy, Android and Mecha. Others called him delusional for ever wanting to advance artificial intelligence to such levels of independency and character. Some now called him a life-saver, for _Stark and Stane AO_ ’s continued production and sale of artificial organs. Others called him a murderer and a crook, for the expense of affording said artificial organs, though, technically, that had always been Obadiah’s pet project, not Tony’s. Tony didn’t have much interest in artificial organs. Except, he supposed, for the ones inside himself.

Because although that video at the Apogee Awards had talked through his achievements; built his first circuit board aged four, at age six his first engine, graduating summa cum laude from MIT at age seventeen, as though they were exemplary, his father hadn’t acknowledged those achievements of Tony’s as anything remarkable. The only thing his father had ever deemed truly remarkable of him was his heart. The artificial one, of course. Papa Stark hadn’t been one for sentiment. Unless it was for his wife or when reminiscing on his precious first Mecha, CAPT-AI-N (America). Not for Tony.

The heart that his father had made for him and successfully installed had been the first of the new and most effective generation of artificial organs still currently in existence. That had been Tony’s greatest achievement to Howard Stark, and it hadn’t even been Tony’s own invention, it had been Howard’s, and Tony had just been the vessel.

‘Tin Man’. That is what other kids had called him when he had received his artificial heart at the age of fourteen. The Tin Man without a heart. He had gotten that a lot, up until he went off to MIT. And then again later on, from several of the many women he slept with and forgot about and was bitterly told that they weren’t surprised because he had no heart to love them with.

It only got worse after Tony had had to have operations to replace his liver and lung after a car accident in his twenties; not long after his parents had died in one. By that point Obadiah had been running _Stark & Stane AO_ for years and so oversaw the whole operation. The term of ‘Cyborg’ had come later, when the classification and definition had been officially accepted; a human with both organic and biomechatronic parts. Tony had enough artificial organs to earn the Cyborg classification. Billionaire, playboy, genius, philanthropist, Cyborg. And then had come the arc reactor and the Iron Man suit, and the title of Cyborg had well and truly been made official.

Getting kidnapped by the terrorist group ‘Ten Rings’ and being held hostage for months in a cave being tortured for not building them weaponry had been the most excruciating time of Tony’s life, aside from losing his mother. It made for a good story though. A _Stark Industries_ rocket-propelled grenade had exploded near enough to Tony to leave shrapnel moving its way towards his artificial heart, and the only thing stopping it from destroying the heart was an electromagnet - designed to stop the shrapnel but not interfere with the running of the heart - implanted by fellow captive Professor Ho Yinsen. Tony and Yinsen had made the arc reactor to power the electromagnet, and then instead of making the Jericho missile the Ten Rings wanted, Tony and Yinsen had made the very first Iron Man suit. Even with all the advanced technology in the world, it had taken Rhodey months to find Tony’s location and by that time, Yinsen had been killed and Tony had busted out of that fucking cave himself, using the suit.

Tony shut down the _Stark Industries_ weapons programme. Obadiah had been pissed off and left _Stark Industries_ , choosing to solely head _Stark and Stane AO_ , which was just fine by Tony. Tony built himself another, better Iron Man suit. He destroyed terrorist bases. Rhodey and Pepper found out. They had been pissed off too, but they didn’t leave like Obadiah had. Tony fixed his heart up a bit more, and the arc reactor, and Pepper had the old one put in a case, determined to prove that Tony Stark did have a heart. And yes, Tony did have one. He had become increasingly aware that it might actually belong to Pepper, because Pepper could see it, and him, better than anyone else could.

Tony had updated his Iron Man suit. He had saved the world a little bit. ‘Iron Man’, the world was saying. But they weren’t calling Tony it. They didn’t know who Iron Man was. So during a press conference in which he was supposed to deny it all, Tony revealed “I am Iron Man.”

Pepper and Rhodey had been pissed off, but Tony didn’t care. He was Iron Man.

Iron Man sounded way, way better than Tin Man.

Pepper’s boyfriend? Tony quite liked the sound of that title too.

Rhodey liked the sound of the title ‘War Machine’ for himself but Tony wasn’t so sure on that one. He’d have to see.

‘MechAvenger’ was the term that Nick Fury and Phil Coulson used when they had finally gotten a chance to schedule a meeting to talk about Iron Man. The MechaAvengers Initiative. And sure, Tony Stark aka. Iron Man thought that sounded pretty fun.

****_Confidential File - Director Nick Fury_ ** **

****_PROPOSED CANDIDATES FOR THE MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE:_ ** **

**NAME:** _Anthony Edward ‘Tony’ Stark_  
 **ALIAS:** _Iron Man_  
 **PROFESSION:** _Owner of Stark Industries, Inventor, Engineer_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:** _Cyborg_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _Stark Industries, Stark & Stane AO_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Known – New York  
_ **STATUS:** _Willing to comply – already on board with the initiative_

  
**NOTES:**

**-** _Expertise in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, chemistry._

_\- Cyborg; artificial organs (heart, liver, lung) and arc reactor in place. Stark was the receiver of the very first Marvel Artificial Organ, the most approved and widely used replacement vital organ. The  heart, designed by Howard Stark, was successfully implanted in Tony Stark when he was fourteen years of age._

_\- Due to Stark’s recent advancements in Nanotech his ‘Iron Man’ suit is also now constantly attached to his person._

**-** _Son of Howard Anthony Walter Stark. Howard Stark was the founder of Stark Industries, co-founder of Stark & Stane AO and co-inventor of the first known Mecha, the Original Mecha CAPT-AI-N (America) model._

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce Banner and the Hulk

 

Bruce Banner’s anger had been shaped by his father. So it made sense that Brian Banner had also created the original Hulk, too.

“He’s going to smash the lot of them,” his father had told him with determination, in a rare moment of sobriety, when Bruce had been eight and his father had revealed the fighter bot he had been working on for months.

His father had once been a gifted scientist; Dr Brian Banner, atomic physicist. Brian Banner hadn’t wanted to have children, afraid that the ‘monster gene’ that he believed he had inherited from his abusive father would pass through him to any offspring. But then he had met Bruce’s mother, Rebecca, and he had adored her. But then Bruce had been born, and so Brian had hated him.

Bruce had never gotten to meet the esteemed Dr Brian Banner, atomic physicist and loving husband. He had only ever known his father as Brian Banner, inventor of fighter bots; a big name in the fighting industry. Because Brian Banner had believed that if he created monsters of metal to fight in the ring, it would deter his own monstrous instincts, and distract him from the fact that he believed he had also created one of flesh and bone; his own son.

Bruce had looked at his father’s latest creation, a big hulking metal android that looked more like a giant than a man. His father had painted it green. Bruce had wrinkled his nose.

“What’s it called?” Bruce had asked, because even after every mean thing his father had done, Bruce had still treasured the little moments where his father hadn’t turned away from him or cursed the day he was born.

“Why don’t you name it?” His father had actually ruffled his hair, in a rare, tentative state between sobriety and drunkenness. One more bottle would have tipped the scales, so Bruce had looked at that great hulking hunk of green metal and had answered quickly.

“Hulk,” Bruce had said.

“I like it,” His father had clapped him on the shoulder and Bruce had winced, so used to those hands being raised for other things. “I like it, Robert. The Hulk. No! The _Incredible_ Hulk! The Incredible Hulk is going to smash the lot of them. Wait and see.”

The Incredible Hulk had indeed smashed. It was an Android, which meant it had looked human enough, but followed every order Bruce’s father had given it, and every time it had been ordered to smash. The Incredible Hulk had been a winner. It had dominated the fighter-bot circuit. The Incredible Hulk had smashed, but then, one terrible day, the Incredible Hulk had crashed. And then Brian Banner had well and truly crashed. And then he killed his wife.

Bruce had always had this something in his chest. A feeling. He imagined it sometimes as a little green ball, the same colour as The Hulk. It was made up of fear, from every time his father had struck out at Bruce or Bruce’s mother, and made up of hate, and of anger. Oh, that anger. The loss of Bruce’s mother had given that little ball so much more weight. Locked it in.

Bruce’s father got institutionalised. Bruce should have been free. But he wasn’t. That little ball of anger was still there, locked in, even after Bruce had locked everything up of his old life - even the Hulk - in a storage locker and moved to live with his Aunt. He went to school and dedicated himself to his studies and tried not to focus on everything else. Everything else that was wrong.

Bruce got degrees, got PhDs. Bruce met Betty and she was intelligent and beautiful and Bruce had finally buried that little green ball. Or so he thought.

He and Betty had begun working on a project. It had been commissioned and funded by Betty’s father, General Thaddeus Ross, as part of the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project. But it hadn’t just been about the funding; Bruce and Betty had taken the job out of pure curiosity, and the challenge it had presented to their brilliant minds.

They had been researching how to replicate the process of the creation of an Original Mecha, of which there had only ever been one success; the CAPT-AI-N (America) Mecha, which had involved an Android body successfully accepting the implant of a human consciousness (that of man named Steve Rogers, known only to the history books now). The creator Dr Abraham Erskine had taken his secrets to the grave with him, it seemed, because although Howard Stark had helped to make the body of the android and its camouflage capabilities, it had been Erskine that had made the chip that Rogers’ consciousness had been stored on in the first place. And even then, other than providing evidence of the fact that Howard Stark had first dubbed the term ‘Mecha’, and his involvement in the creation of CAPT-AI-N (America), Stark had chosen never to reveal how ‘Project Rebirth’ had been done, and had never tried to make another Original Mecha either, turning instead to new pursuits.

Over the years there had been numerous attempts to replicate the process of the Original Mecha. People wanted their minds transplanted into artificial bodies so that they could be, essentially, immortal. The rich had started making a fuss. Some had gone so far as to die; transplanting their consciousness onto a drive only for it never to take in any artificial vessel. People had died trying to make it happen. So that’s why Bruce and Betty were looking into partial-consciousness transferral as a place to start; copying a consciousness to install rather than taking it and killing the human in the process.

“Maybe we just need the right artificial vessel,” Betty had pondered one day in the lab, placing a fresh cup of coffee beside Bruce and pressing a kiss to his temple. “Something stronger.”

And that had been when Bruce had gone into the storage facility that he had kept firmly locked since his father had been taken away, and got out the Hulk.

“It’s the strongest android I know,” Bruce had rationalised as Betty had stared at it. “It just needs fixing up.”

“And whose consciousness are we trying to copy and transfer this time?” Betty had asked, although they both knew that she had already known the answer.

“Mine,” Bruce had said. “We’ll do mine.”

They had been so determined to succeed - to conquer the challenge - that they had never stopped to think of the consequences. And they should have. Because it worked. To a point. The drive took, making it the first successful human consciousness implant since the CAPT-AI-N (America) for ‘Project Rebirth’ during the Great Technology War. The Hulk was made sentient, capable of making his own decisions, having his own thoughts and feelings. The problem was, only the strongest of emotions in the copy of Bruce’s consciousness seemed to have taken hold.

That little green ball of a child’s darkest anger and fear that Bruce had thought he had successfully quashed was the majority of what the Hulk received. It gave the Hulk an almost childish view of the world, quick to anger and not good at making its own decisions that didn’t cause some kind of destruction. And that hadn’t been the worst part of it. The transferral and connection was the worst part of it. The replication of consciousness had not worked as expected, and the Hulk had actually taken a part of Bruce’s own, forming a psychological connection between the two of them. Where Bruce went, the Hulk had to go. They couldn’t be left apart for long due to Bruce suffering from excruciating headaches. And Bruce couldn’t shut the Hulk down, because if he did, a part of Bruce’s consciousness would die with it and it would cause irreparable damage.

Betty and Bruce had looked for a solution. General Thaddeus Ross had wanted something else. He had wanted the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project to continue. He had never thought Bruce good enough for Betty, so had been more than happy to ignore Bruce’s plight, instead calling it a ‘good first step in the right direction’ and ordering the creation a Red Hulk android and another pale green abomination of an android for Emil Blonsky, one of his favourite special-ops commandos, and Ross wanted Bruce to show him the process. Ross had wanted to start an army.

Bruce and Betty had burned their research and destroyed every computer file.

Ross and Blonsky had turned up and things had gotten heated. The Hulk, confused and fuelled by the anger in the room had attempted to lash out at Ross but had hit Betty instead. It had put her in a coma for a short time.

Devastated to have hurt the woman he loved – the fact it was by association through his psychological connection with the Hulk did not excuse him; it made him no better than his father, a monster – and hunted by Ross, who had deemed him a danger to the public, Bruce had been forced on the run. With the Hulk in tow.

It had been hard to find employment with his green, hulking bodyguard, but Bruce had taken it where he could get it. A bottling factory in Rio took him for a while, but an incident meant he had had to move on. And he kept moving. The Hulk was not an easy thing to hide and sometimes would go into a fit of rage and destruction that Bruce couldn’t control. Word of his whereabouts always spread damn fast.

He became better at managing the Hulk’s temperament, and his own. And also better at managing the distance of separation between him and the Hulk. He could sometimes leave the Hulk locked up and go out on his own, but the Hulk hated it and Bruce couldn’t keep a proper eye on him.

Bruce managed to keep them both under the radar for several years, acting as a freelance medical doctor, constantly on the move from town to town. He was in Calcutta when someone finally caught up to him.

“Who are you?” he asked the red-headed female Mecha in front of him.

From the look of her - true perfection - she may have possibly once been an android, but he could tell that she was now Mecha because her artificial eyes had a spark of true sentience; possibly from an exposure to an illegal program. This woman, though artificial, had her own thoughts and her own feelings, not that she was showing any emotion at that moment. She had her guard up. And for good reason. The Hulk was standing just behind him.

“Natasha Romanoff,” the Mecha said.

“Are you here to kill me, Miss Romanoff?” Bruce asked. He knew the look of an android assassin. He had had a few sent after him in the last few years. If she _had_ been exposed to an illegal program like the _Dark Web_ , she had likely been originally built as an android before the exposure to the illegal program had given her sentience, turning her into a Mecha. “Because that’s not going to work out for everyone.” He shifted. The Hulk mirrored his movement.

He didn’t trust her. She had lured them to this abandoned house on the outskirts of the city by using a child supposedly looking for medical aid. She seemed ruthless.

“No. No. Of course not,” Romanoff said, dismissively. “I am here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D.” Bruce repeated. He had heard of them, vaguely; The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division and its branch created specifically for dealing with artificiality; the Artificial Reestablishment, Management and Engagement Department. He didn’t like the sound of it. “How did they find me?”

“We never lost you, doctor. We have kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent.”

“Why?”

“Its Director, Nick Fury, seems to think that you are a trustworthy ally. Will you hear what he has to say?”

Bruce cocked his head. So did the Hulk. “What if I say no?”

Romanoff did not seem fazed. She cocked her head similarly, in a move that was artificially quick and unnatural. It was a prime indicator of her origins as an android rather than a purposefully created Mecha, which were designed to act much more humanistic. “I’ll persuade you.”

“And what if the…” Bruce jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the elephant – or rather, giant green hunk of Hulk metal – in the room behind him. “Other guy says no?”

Romanoff’s gaze flicked to the Hulk. “You have both been more than a year without an incident. I do not think you want to break that streak.”

Bruce shrugged. “I don’t always get what I want.”

And wasn’t that the truth?

 

****_Confidential File - Director Nick Fury_ ** **

****_PROPOSED CANDIDATES FOR THE MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE:_ ** **

**NAME:** _Dr Robert Bruce ‘Bruce’ Banner_  
 **ALIAS:** _The Hulk_  
 **PROFESSION:** _Scientist (M.D, PhD)_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:**   _Human_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _N/A_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Known - Calcutta_  
 **STATUS:** _Likely unwilling, potentially hostile. Approach with caution._

  
**NOTES:**

_\- Expertise in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, nuclear physics, radiophysics, medicine, physiology, engineering. Holds 7 PhDs._

_\- Currently being hunted by General Thaddeus Ross and various independent companies that are aware of the results of the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project._

_\- Was previously in a relationship with General Ross’ daughter, Dr Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Ross._

**_\- *WARNING:_ ** _is constantly accompanied by, and mentally connected to, a partially successful Original Mecha known as the Hulk, an edited/enhanced fighter bot. Treat the Hulk with utmost caution; known as the ‘rage machine’ for a reason._

_\- Security measures are in place if Dr Banner and the Hulk join the initiative._

**NAME:** _The Hulk_  
 **ALIAS:** _N/A_  
 **PROFESSION:** _N/A_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:**   _Original Mecha_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _Dr Bruce Banner and Dr Brian Banner_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Known - Calcutta_  
 **STATUS:** _Hostile. Approach with caution._

  
**NOTES:**

_-_ _Originally created as a fighter bot android by Dr Brian Banner. Later experiments by his son Dr Bruce Banner under the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project headed by Dr Thaddeus Ross, resulted in partial consciousness-transferral as Bruce Banner managed to mentally connect and download a copied piece of his own mind into the android. It is the most successful attempt at recreating the process of the CAPT-AI-N (America) Original Mecha, despite only partial success._

_\- Partial success because the piece of consciousness copied and transferred from Banner to the Hulk appears to be largely the base emotion of anger._

_-_ _Only responds to Dr Banner but has often been witnessed to break control and act entirely on own accord; usually violently._

_\- Security measures are in place if Dr Banner and the Hulk join the initiative._

 

* * *

 

 Thor and Loki

 

Thor was a god. Or at least, that was what he had been told.

“Who am I?” Thor asked, blinking as he came into being, into consciousness.

“My god,” a voice said, “It worked.”

“I am a god?” Thor tried to clarify, confused.

“Yes, my son,” his father had told him. “You are a god.”

Thor learned, much later, that he wasn’t actually a god. He was an Enhanced Mecha. Created like any other Mecha, to look like a man and be sentient like a man, but before he had been allowed to come into being, his father – his creator, really – who called himself Odin, had exposed Thor to the _Bionic Frost_ (or _Bifrost_ ) _,_ a computer program that made Thor powerful, made Thor _more_ than any other Mecha.

“We’re gods amongst Mecha, which makes us stronger than men,” Thor’s brother Loki would tell him, “That’s what he means when he says we are gods.”

Loki was Odin’s second successful attempt at using the _Bifrost_ to create an Enhanced Mecha. Thor was the first. But there had been one before, apparently, before the _Bifrost_ had been perfected.

“You had a sister,” Odin told Thor once, and only once. “But the  _Bifrost_  wasn’t ready yet. She got too exposed to the data. It made her…difficult. I shut her down.”

Because while Thor and Loki were gods, Odin? Odin was all powerful. He ran a company called _Asgard_ , the leader of a group of companies known as the _Nine Realms._ Only _Asgard_ had access to the _Bifrost_ and could make god-like machines.

Thor had been made from scratch, to be strong and powerful. The _Bifrost_ had enhanced his strength and endurance. But it had also given him powers. He could control electricity; lightening, a few times, because his wiring made him act as a conductor and absorber of energies with the ability to expel it. He could localise it using a specially made hammer that Odin called _Mjolnir,_ because Odin had a bit of an obsession with Norse mythology.

Loki had been more of an experiment. He had originally been built by another company of the _Nine Realms_ called _Jotunheim_. Loki had originally been made as one of the _Frost GI-AI-NT_ series that had been blue, with red eyes, because some of the _Nine Realms_ and _SPACE_ industries liked to experiment with physique, quirky skin colours and designs. _Jotunheim_ was shut down by _A.X.E_ ( _Abolition of Xeno-Artificial Engineering)_ for being a little too illegally experimental with its Mecha and Androids, but Loki had been one of the models shipped out for auction just in time. Odin had bought him and exposed him to the _Bifrost_ , changing his design to pale skin, pale eyes and black hair. The _Bifrost_ also gave Loki strength, quick reflexes and an extraordinary power of trickery, which was likely due to having being created as a _FROST GI-AI-NT_ first.

Thor and Loki had been Odin’s princes, but Odin had a realm, a kingdom, to build, and so he made them a mother, Frigga, and warrior allies; Sigg, Fandral, Volstagg and Hogan. And then there was Heimdall, with his amber eyes, who reacted to the _Bifrost_ in such a way that he was able to connect to technologies all over the world, and see through other artificial’s eyes.

They had lived in their own little world, their _Asgard_ , ignorant of the rest of the world around them for years. But then  _A.X.E_  had come calling, wanting to arrest Odin and destroy his creations for the illegal use of the _Bifrost_.

“You have to go, my sons,” Odin had demanded of them, already throwing documents into the fireplace, already wiping file after file on his many computer screens. “Go out into the world! Learn to be kings and then come to find me.”

“But father,” Thor had begged, confused, as Loki had stood silently by his side, “Father, what is going on? Why must we leave?”

“Because we are gods amongst Mecha and men, Thor,” Loki had told him quietly, staring at Odin with a mix of fury and calm understanding. “And we should not be that way. But we are. And they will try to kill us for it.”

Odin had nodded sharply, waving his hand at them as he rifled through more boxes, “You must go! Now!”

“I can fight them father! We can fight them!” Thor had exclaimed, holding Mjolnir tighter in his fist. “We can protect _Asgard_!” They had been trained to be warriors! Why would their father not let them fight?

Odin had swept a box to the floor with a clang. “You cannot protect yourselves Thor!” he had shouted at him. There was fear in his eyes. “Not from this. So you have no hope to protect the kingdom!”

“There won’t be a kingdom to protect if you are afraid to act! You told us that they feared you! Let us make them fear us again!”

“That is pride and vanity talking, not leadership!” Odin had not wanted to be cruel, Thor knew later. He had been terrified to lose the Mecha that he saw as his own family; lose them to being shut down or destroyed. “Have you forgotten everything that I have taught you? What of a warrior’s patience?”

“While you wait and be patient _Asgard_ will be destroyed and the _Nine Realms_ will laugh at us!” Thor had shouted back.

“There aren’t nine _Nine Realms_ anymore,” Loki had reminded Thor quietly. “ _Jotunheim_ , _Muspelheim_ and _Svartalfheim_ are already gone and _Asgard_ …”

“ _Asgard_ will not fall!” Thor had insisted, turning back to Odin. If only he had let them fight! “You cannot stand here giving speeches about letting _Asgard_ fall!”

“Do not be vain, boy!” Odin had snapped.

“At least I am not a fool, old man!” Thor had lashed back.

Odin had sighed, “I was a fool to think you were ready.”

Thor had paused, hurt. “Father…”

“Nay!” Odin had held up his hand to halt him. “Thor Odinson, you are betraying the express command of your king! Do not be unworthy of this realm or your title! Do not be unworthy and betray your loved ones! I will take your power from you!”

“You wouldn’t,” Loki had hissed, stepping protectively in front of Thor, narrowing his calculating eyes, intelligent beyond most Mecha’s ability thanks to the _Bifrost._

Odin’s shoulders had drooped. “No, I wouldn’t. Thor is more than worthy to hold his hammer and possess his own power. I am just afraid to lose you both, which I will, if you do not leave right this instant. Do not make me banish you. Do not make me cast you out. Either of you. You must leave before it is too late. Take your mother, and all and whoever you can. You are both fit to be kings, my boys, now lead your Mecha to safety. And come for me when I send word.”

“We will return for you father,” Thor had promised, devastated, as Loki had attempted to pull him towards the door.

“Loki,” Odin had said. “You will return for me also?”

Loki had looked startled, often used to being treated as second-best to Thor. He had replied with an uncharacteristic betrayal of emotion, “We will return, father.”

“I love you, my boys,” Odin had said.

And they had run. They had managed to take a small band of Enhanced Mecha with them; their mother, Heimdall, Sigg, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogan and even their father’s last surviving Valkyrie Mecha, who was originally called ‘Brunnhilde’ but preferred to be called ‘Valkyrie’, since she was the only one left. She also drank a lot of robot fuel. She could drive a van well, though, and that was how the nine of them had made their escape.

They had holed up in an abandoned block of warehouses. Thor had gone out to scout the surrounding area. He had been hit by a truck, and the impact also affected whatever programmed-psychological connection he had to his hammer.

The people who had hit him turned out to be scientists; Dr Erik Selvig, Dr Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis. Well, astrophysicists really, but they knew enough of Mecha to find Thor fascinating. They had charged him back up and allowed him to ‘heal’ and eventually taken Thor back to get his hammer.

Mjolnir would not lift off the ground. Not even for Thor.

“Something has been dislodged. I can feel it. It needs fixing,” Thor told them. “I must go to _Asgard_.”

“ _Asgard_ doesn’t exist anymore,” Darcy said. “Didn’t you know? It got shut down for illegal and barbaric Mecha practices and its founder – some crazy guy who called himself Odin – was, hey!”

Jane had elbowed her sharply to shut her up, because Thor’s face had crumpled. “What happened to my father?”

“Father?” Dr Selvig had asked in confusion. “Are you speaking of Odin?”

Thor nodded.

“He’s been arrested,” Jane told him gently, still treating him with wide-eyed wonder.

Thor yelled in angry frustration, in devastation that his father and his home and his hammer were gone, and the nearest electric wires sparkled and zapped visible streams of electricity straight to him.

“Well, that’s new,” Darcy observed.

“A whole new type of Mecha,” Dr Selvig agreed wonderingly. He glanced at Jane. “Enhanced, definitely.”

“How else can we fix your connection to your hammer, Thor?” Jane asked him. “We will help you if we can.”

“Jane,” Dr Selvig had taken her aside but Thor had still been able to hear him, “He’s an illegal Mecha. If we help him and the authorities find out…or A.X.E…”

“We can’t not help him,” Jane reasoned, “Look at him. He’s as good as human. He thinks he _is_.”

“I’m not human,” Thor informed them helpfully. “I’m a god.”

“Of course you are,” Darcy told him, patting him on the shoulder.

“And I must return to my mother, brother and friends.”

“Your what now?”

“Heimdall will be able to fix it. Or Loki.”

“Loki?” Jane said, “As in the Norse God of Mischief?”

“Oh! You know him?”

Darcy slapped her palm to her face.

In the end, it was not Heimdall, Loki, Dr Erik Selvig or Darcy Lewis that fixed Thor’s chip and connection to Mjolnir. It was Jane Foster. Because she accidentally hit him with her car. Again. And whatever had been knocked out of place was apparently righted again.

Thor had been hovering around the site of his hammer for several weeks. Watching with smug satisfaction as none of the humans that had found it - and had been treating it like some sword-in-the-stone - could lift it from the spot he had dropped it when Jane had hit him with her car the first time and broken his connection to it. The hammer wasn’t heavy, per se, it was just so charged with electric and static that it shocked even through the most resilient of gloves and suits. But that night, in the rain, with the connection in him fixed, he ran alone to the site of the hammer and with a triumphant cry, wrenched it out of the ground. Busy whooping and dancing around, he did not notice that someone was watching him.

“Hey,” a voice sounded from overhead and Thor looked up to find a man perched precariously on the roof of one of the nearest buildings. “Thor, right?”

Thor narrowed his eyes up at him. “And who are you, tiny man?”

“Tiny man?” the man laughed, climbing down from the building with alarming agility. “My ego just took a hit, not going to lie.” He landed nimbly on the ground. “I’m Hawkeye.”

“Not a tiny man. A bird man,” Thor corrected, as the man came to stand in front of him.

“Or just ‘Hawkeye’ will be fine,” the man said, amused. He was human, Thor could tell, but he had one eye that was clearly artificial. There was purple metal branching out like a partial half-mask on his face instead of skin, and the eye set inside it was dark and would whir and reset every so often. He was handsome still, Thor observed. “Or even Clint,” the man said, stretching out his hand, “Agent Clint Barton.”

Thor stared at the offered hand before remembering Dr Erik Selvig teaching him how to ‘shake hands’, and he did just that. “Agent of what?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D,” Clint said.

“I used to have a shield,” Thor told him. “I had to leave it behind. I never found it as useful as my hammer anyway.”

“Yeah,” Clint agreed, like having a shield and a hammer was nothing out of ordinary, despite Darcy and Jane having told Thor that it definitely was. “I’m glad you got that back.”

“Me too,” Thor said, brightening.

“It’ll come in useful.”

“Useful for what?”

“Let me tell you about this little thing called the MechAvengers Initiative…”

 

****_Confidential File - Director Nick Fury_ ** **

****_PROPOSED CANDIDATES FOR THE MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE:_ ** **

**NAME:** _Thor Odinson_  
 **ALIAS:** _God of Thunder_  
 **PROFESSION:** _N/A_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:** _Enhanced Mecha_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _Asgard Industries_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Unknown_  
 **STATUS:** _Unknown. Could be friendly or hostile if approached. Approach with caution._

  
**NOTES:**

_\- Enhanced Mecha created from scratch by ‘Odin’, head of Asgard Industries. Enhancement was achieved by exposing the Mecha to the illegal Bionic Frost (Bifrost) program. Bifrost gives Mecha enhanced sentience, strength and abilities._

_\- Asgard was shut down for its illegal use of the Bifrost by S.H.I.E.L.D: A.R.M.E.D’s International branch A.X.E (_ Abolition of Xeno-Artificial Engineering) _. Enhanced Mechas Thor, Loki, Heimdall, Valkerie, Frigga, Sigg, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogan escaped and are still missing._

_-Thor’s strength and abilities ultimately unknown. The ‘Nine Realms’ and ‘SPACE’ groups of independent manufacturers keep their records secret and often destroy them before A.X.E can get involved. The results of many of their experiments remain mysteries._

_\- Nine Realms manufacturers: Alfheim, Asgard, Jotunheim, Midgard, Muspelheim, Nidavellir, Niflheim, Svartalfheim, Vanaheim._

_\- Known SPACE manufacturers that use exposure to illegal Infinity Code programs include: Celestial, Centauri, Halfworld, Kyln, Terra, Sakaar, Sovereign, X, Xandar, Zen-Whoberi._

**NAME:** _Loki Odinson_  
 **ALIAS:** _God of Mischief_  
 **PROFESSION:** _N/A_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:** _Enhanced Mecha_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _Jotunheim Industries (initially),_ _Asgard Industries (enhancements)_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Unknown_  
 **STATUS:** _Unknown._ _Jotunheim models can be hostile and untrustworthy._ _Approach with caution._

  
**NOTES:**

_\- One of the Frost GI-AI-NT series by Jotunheim Industries. Later bought and adapted to Enhanced Mecha by ‘Odin’, head of Asgard Industries. Enhancement was achieved by exposing the Mecha to the illegal Bionic Frost (Bifrost) program, which causes enhanced sentience, strength and abilities._

_\- Both Jotunheim and Asgard have been shut down for their illegal activities by A.X.E (_ Abolition of Xeno-Artificial Engineering) _. Enhanced Mechas Loki, Thor, Heimdall, Frigga, Sigg, Fandral, Volstagg, Hogan escaped and are still missing._

_\- Loki’s strength and abilities ultimately unknown. The ‘Nine Realms’ and ‘SPACE’ groups of independent manufacturers keep their records secret and often destroy them before A.X.E can get involved. The results of many of their experiments remain mysteries._

_\- Nine Realms manufacturers: Alfheim, Asgard, Jotunheim, Midgard, Muspelheim, Nidavellir, Niflheim, Svartalfheim, Vanaheim._

_\- Known SPACE manufacturers that use exposure to the illegal Infinity Code programs include: Celestial, Centauri, Halfworld, Kyln, Terra, Sakaar, Sovereign, X, Xandar, Zen-Whoberi._

* * *

 

 

Clint Barton - aka. Hawkeye

 

Like an arrow arched high, or a bird swooping low, Clint Barton’s life had had its ups and downs.

Losing his parents in a car accident as a small child; the fault of his abusive, drunken father; that had shot him down before he’d even stretched his wings.

Six years in that fucking orphanage. They had tried to clip his fletching, his wings, keep him down. But him and his brother Barney? They weren’t doing that. They escaped. They ran away from the orphanage, from high school. They ran away to the Carson Carnival of Travelling Wonders.

The carnival had a mix of attractions, both human and artificial. It had its highs. It had its lows. Becoming ‘The World’s Greatest Marksman’ had him soaring high. He drew in huge crowds. He never missed. He had better aim than some programmed machines; they would put him against androids just to watch them fail, because apparently some anti-Mecha people liked to celebrate that humanity did not always benefit from artificiality. He enjoyed the small-time fame and although he knew Barney was a little jealous of his success, they had had some laughs too. They had been happy, for a short time.

Being beaten and left for dead after learning of embezzlement at the carnival? That was a low.

Barney leaving to join the army? Well, Barney was someone ‘The World’s Greatest Marksman’ _did_ miss. Clint had been ready to go with him but had missed the bus out of town. He missed Barney, even if his big brother had been horrible sometimes.

It hadn’t been long before Clint left the carnival. He didn’t miss it. He got to spread his wings a bit.

He had travelled for a while, attraction to attraction, before he had his run in with that fucking Clown. The Clown, jealous of Hawkeye’s success, had tried to stab Hawkeye’s eyes out, so that he couldn’t shoot anymore. Hawkeye had turned his head to save his eyeballs, and had been stabbed in the fucking eardrum.

So yeah, being stabbed in the ear and ending up partially deaf had been a low. He had been approached by a representative of a company called the _CIRCUS_ while he had been in hospital, claiming that they would be able to fix his eardrum and replace it with an artificial one, at half the price that a company like _Stark and Stane AO_ would offer. Desperate for some kind of cure, and already hard up after the medical bills caused by being stabbed in said ear, Hawkeye had, foolishly, agreed.

The _CIRCUS_ did what the Clown had failed to do. They took his goddamn eye, fixed in a crude metal plating and eyeball in its place, and threw him out on the street. There was as much a black market for real organs as there was for artificial ones, with the official artificial ones being deemed too expensive to pay off the expenses for. It was never explicitly acknowledged, but the underbelly of the world of artificial adaptations for humans was a grim, cold, unforgiving world. If you went for an official company like _Stark and Stane AO_ and agreed to pay back the price of the artificial organ or limb in instalments and then couldn’t meet the payments, there were actual repo men who would come and rip the thing out or off of you. If you went to an underground organisation like _CIRCUS_ they fucked you over for real organs, your money, or to experiment with their own little inventions.

In short; Hawkeye had made the biggest mistake. Missed the target by a mile. He couldn’t adapt to this environment. He was half blind and half deaf.

And that was how Nick Fury had found him.

“They say you’re an unmatched marksman,” said the man that sat down next to Clint at the bar, when he was four out of eight whiskey shots down, all lined up in a row, like target practice.

“Not anymore mate,” Clint said. If the man had been speaking into Clint’s bad ear, he wouldn’t have even heard him in the first place. “Half deaf and half blind,” he turned his head enough towards his irritating new companion so that the man could catch a glimpse of the purple metal plate surrounding his eye, and the artificial eyeball within that didn’t fucking work. He hoped that the man would now decide that Clint was useless and leave him the fuck alone. “Hawkeye’s only got one eye. Kind of puts a stop to any kind of marksmanship.”

“Never stopped me,” the man beside him said airily.

Clint frowned, turning properly to observe the man with his real, working eye, only to start in surprise. The man sitting beside him at the bar was wearing a black eye-patch over one eye.

“Shit, dude,” was all Clint said. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

“It did, at first.”

“You never went for artificial,” Clint knocked back another shot. “No debts. You’re smarter than I was. Though, I went in that operating room for a new eardrum, not a new eyeball. You’d think they’d be able to tell the difference.”

“Then you will be pleased to learn that S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D. shut _CIRCUS_ down.”

Clint did not bother asking how the man knew that it had been _CIRCUS_ that had done this to him. The man seemed to know exactly who Clint was.

“S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D? What’s that when it’s at home?”

“The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Artificial Reestablishment, Management and Engagement Department branch.”

“Mouthful.”

“Hence the acronyms.”

“And they – you, I assume – have the power to shut down whole black market companies?”

“Yes. And the power to know exactly who you are, Clint Barton. So I’m here to recruit you.”

“Recruit me? What for?” Clint remembered the remark of his being a marksman. “If you’re after a marksman, like I said, I’ve got no eye left to aim with, mate.”

“Rumour had it you could hit a target with your eyes closed. Looking the other way.”

“Yeah, well,” Clint picked up one of the darts that he had piled up on his other side, and without looking, threw the dart into the dead centre of the dartboard hanging on the nearest wall. “My heart’s not in it anymore.”

“What if I told you that I could get you an eye installed with a target system? For free.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” Clint knocked back his sixth shot. “If it’s that easy to replace an eye, how come you’ve never done it?”

“Never felt the need. But you, I think you need this, Clint.”

Clint eyed him sceptically. There was a price to pay, here, even if it wasn’t with money. “What’s the catch?”

“I want you to train as an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D. Help protect people like yourself from being screwed over by companies like _CIRCUS_. Help me shut those kinds of company down. Help protect the rights of Adapted Humans, Androids, Mecha…the lot of them.”

“A full time job and a new eye and a place to train in archery?” Clint clarified, just to see the man nod and confirm it.

It still sounded too good to be true, like _CIRCUS_ had, but Clint had been too long down on the ground and had nothing left to lose. He needed an up again. He pushed one of his last two remaining whiskey shots towards the man.

“Clint Barton,” Clint introduced himself properly, even though the man already knew who he was.

“Nick Fury,” Nick Fury returned, shaking Clint’s hand.

Clint held up his shot glass, Fury did likewise. “You’ve got yourself an agent, Nick Fury.”

They clinked glasses and Clint drank his, before slamming the empty glass upside down on the table, completing a circle of his seven empty shot glasses on the bar top. “Hawkeye would work as a codename right?”

“I’m counting on it,” Fury replied, before drinking his own and placing his glass right in the centre of Clint’s circle. Bullseye. Sealing the deal.

Clint got his new eye installed, an incredible piece of tech with a targeting system that had an accuracy Clint had never seen the likes of before. He did his training to relearn to shoot and fight with said artificial eye. Fury had offered a fix for his eardrum as well, but Clint had been reluctant to have any more artificial replacements, even under an organisation like S.H.I.E.L.D, so had been fitted out with a high-tech hearing aid instead.

Clint became an elite agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury promoted him a number of times, praising his natural skill for leadership, strategy and initiative, as well as for combat. Hawkeye was flying high once more.

But he never soared quite so high as when he met Laura Barton.

He had run it by Fury, when Laura had deemed Clint a keeper. Fury had allowed it, and had kept Laura’s name off of any S.H.I.E.L.D files to keep her identity protected. Clint had been honest with Laura from the start about who he was and what he did. It had been Laura, pregnant with their first child, who had suggested buying a house in the country; a safe house for his family and a safe place he could return to between missions. That homestead became his nest, his happy place, his place of love and family. And only he and Nick Fury knew of its existence.

It was after the birth of Clint and Laura’s son, Cooper, that Clint first met Nat.

“She’s dangerous, Barton,” Fury told him, pushing a file towards him. “Black Widow has been on S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D’s radar for a while now. Created as the ‘Android Assassin’ by the _Red Room_ and later given sentience and Mecha status through exposure to the _Dark Web_ program, hence, Black Widow. She’s become a threat to global security. Half the human population are dubious of Mecha as it is and her existence, the threat of her, is not helping the cause. I need you to go to Russia and shut her down.”

Fury was one of the only head agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to actually refer to Mecha as ‘he’ or ‘she’ and not ‘it’; probably why he had ended up the head of the branch that dealt with artificiality relations. It was why Clint had become an agent of A.R.M.E.D too. There was a number of agents in other branches of S.H.I.E.L.D that didn’t trust _him_ , for even having one piece of artificiality.

 _“It affects you. The technology. It’s why you aren’t registered as ‘Human’ anymore,”_ one of the agents from another branch not associated with artificials had told him once in the heat of an argument. _“You’re an Adapted Human. A tech sympathiser.”_

Clint supposed he was, but his eye hadn’t had anything to do with it. He just had a gut feeling to do what was right, to protect people, and Mecha, artificials with their own thoughts and feelings, were as good as human to him, and he believed that they should have their own rights. He was used to being called a tech sympathiser by that point, and was called it many more times besides, after he tracked down the Black Widow in Russia and, rather than shutting her down, let her live.

“You are like me,” the red-headed woman had said, tilting her head, artificial eyes looking at Clint’s single one.

“More than most other humans, yeah,” Clint had agreed.

Fury had been…well…furious, initially. But on Clint bringing her to A.R.M.E.D for questioning, Fury had quickly come to see what Clint could see. An extremely intelligent Mecha. The sentience that she had gained from the _Dark Web_ had given her a personality that was quick-witted, a mind for strategy, but also untrusting, cautious, lost, in need of direction. And she could fight. She had been made to be an assassin and with every kick, every punch, every leap through the air it showed. She had been a dangerous weapon created by the _Red Room,_ but Clint had seen the potential for her to become a shield, an ambassador for artificials that had been created initially for sinister purposes.

“She’s your responsibility,” Fury had told Clint when Fury had finally, _finally,_ agreed to see what she could become. “Train her, teach her, learn about and from her.”

Clint had hit bullseye with his character-assessment of Nat; his instincts that she had been created by bad people but was not bad herself. She flourished in training and then as an agent. Hawkeye and Black Widow became partner agents, running tactical missions in Budapest, Abidjan, Moscow and many more besides. The Mecha he had decided to save did not only become his partner, but also his best friend. He had trusted her enough to let her be the third person within S.H.I.E.L.D to know about his home and family. Nat and Laura had struck up a swift friendship, and when Clint watched Nat play with Cooper, and their new baby girl Lila, Clint already knew that Nat was a good, honest, righteous person, only forged by evil hands, not controlled by them.

It had been, therefore, a natural response, when Fury had first introduced them to the concept of the MechAvengers Initiative and their roles within it, that Clint and Nat had agreed to do it together. Nat would be an ambassador for Mecha. Clint would be an ambassador for Adapted Humans.

“I need you both to observe and recruit some others that we have picked out as potential candidates,” Fury had said. “Romanoff, I know you have been observing Tony Stark undercover for some time now, but Coulson and I are going to take over on approaching Stark regarding his involvement. What I need from you are two people; Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers.”

“Banner?” Clint had heard of him. “The one that’s psychologically linked to a semi-sentient fighter bot?”

Nat hadn’t batted an artificial eyelid. “Sounds like fun,” she said. “And Steve Rogers?” she nodded. “It would make sense to recruit the Original Mecha to the initiative.”

“Wait, _that_ Steve Rogers? _The_ CAPT-AI-N (America)?” Clint frowned at Fury. “In case you hadn’t learned from every history book since the Great Technology War, he was destroyed in a train crash while saving the lives of thousands of people, like, seventy years ago.”

“We now have reason to believe he survived that crash and was taken in by Hydra. He has, as far as S.H.I.E.L.D knows, been inactive and MIA for seventy years. But there have been rumours, and I need Romanoff to find the root of these rumours, gather intel, and see if he can be found.”

“And me?” Clint asked. Natasha’s missions sounded impossible. Clint expected no less for his.

“Two Enhanced Mecha that went missing during A.X.E’s shutdown of _Asgard_ and the arrest of Odin.”

Clint nodded. He had looked into the case-files post-shutdown. Odin had been a crazy son of a bitch, and his work at _Asgard_ had been illegal and, according to some, inhumanly bizarre.

“They are called Thor and Loki,” Fury said. “We have some intel relating to a mechanical hammer that has been discovered. I need you to track them down and observe them. Recruit them both if you can, but they are assumed to be with at least seven others, so if you can determine the location of all of them, that would be best. For everyone involved.”

And so Hawkeye had tracked down the location of the mysterious mechanical hammer that painfully shocked anyone that tried to pick it up with an unbelievable charge. And then Hawkeye had waited and watched. The Mecha that Clint assumed to be Thor – long golden hair, a ridiculously muscular physique and that almost unnatural attractiveness that many artificials had - hung around a lot, watching people try and fail to pick up the hammer. But on the odd occasion Thor tried to pick it up too, and he also failed.

Then one night, Thor came back, literally crackling with sparks, and hefted the hammer off the ground and triumphantly over his head. It had been then that Clint had decided to make his move.

“Let me tell you about this little thing called the MechAvengers Initiative…” he had just said to Thor, when another voice joined in the conversation.

“Don’t trust it, brother,” A voice came out of the shadows, before a lithe Mecha with long black hair stepped out of them, glaring at Clint all the while.

It had been a long, long time since Clint himself had been referred to as an ‘it’. It was normally an insult used by humans towards Mecha and androids, and not the other way around.

“Ah, good,” Clint tried not to be deterred. “Loki, I assume? That’s good, because I was hoping to speak to you too.”

“I could just brainwash him,” Loki offered to Thor, watching Clint darkly.

Clint did not like the sound of that at all. It wasn’t hard to believe that these Enhanced Mecha could be dangerous without direction. While Thor seemed amiable enough - almost naïve in some regards - he had power over electricity, and on one rainy night, Clint had sworn he had seen him absorb a strike of lightening. Loki, as the file Clint had been given on him had predicted, was openly hostile, and his powers were less clear; particularly because he had been created originally as a FROST G-AI-NT by _Jotunheim_. Clint had been observing Thor for days, whereas this was his first encounter with Loki.

“As delightful as that doesn’t sound,” Clint said, “You could maybe just hear what I have to say? Joining the MechAvengers Initiative would not only mean that you would be able to come out of hiding, but also potentially prove that Odin’s work wasn’t for hostile means.”

“Our father is a god,” Loki said, “He gives and he takes away. And so could we, if so inclined.” He watched Clint closely, presumably to see if he would be intimidated.  When Clint did not back down or look away, Loki seemed to relax a little. “You have heart,” he decided. He nodded at Thor.

“We will hear what you have to say,” Thor said. “For the sake of our mother and the people of _Asgard._ ”

It was very unusual to hear Mecha refer to their creators, or other Mecha, as siblings, mothers or fathers. But then, Thor and Loki were Enhanced Mecha, and had been created in a company that had not adhered to any rules but the Norse Mythology that ‘Odin’ was apparently a fan of.

“And will your mother and other friends be joining us for our chat?”

Thor shook his head, eyeing Clint suspiciously. “Not until we deem you a trustworthy ally. They will remain in hiding, out of your sight and mind, Hawk-Eyes.”

“Yeah, it’s just ‘Hawkeye,’” Clint had sighed. These two were going to be a challenge, but at least he had successfully gained interest from both of them. Clint hadn’t actually been given orders to recruit any of the others. Just these two. “Just the one eye.”

He hadn’t intended it to sound like a reference to his artificial eye, but Thor apparently took it as such.

“And a mighty fine eye it is too,” Thor clapped him on the shoulder. “I am tempted to get one myself.”

“Don’t tempt fate, Thor,” Loki scolded. “Now, tell us, Hawkeye, about this MechAvengers Initiative. Now. With haste. Before you start to bore me and I decide to brainwash you after all.”

Clint decided to take the Enhanced Mecha at his word.

 

****_Confidential File - Director Nick Fury_ ** **

****_PROPOSED CANDIDATES FOR THE MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE:_ ** **

**NAME:** Clinton Francis ‘Clint’ Barton  
 **ALIAS:** _Hawkeye_  
 **PROFESSION:** _S.H.I.E.L.D Agent (A.R.M.E.D branch)_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:** _Adapted human_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _Enhancement made and installed by_ _CIRCUS, updated by S.H.I.E.L.D_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Known – New York_  
 **STATUS:** _Already part of Initiative. Employee of S.H.I.E.L.D. Reports to Nick Fury._

  
**NOTES:**

_\- Human with mechanical enhancement; artificial eye._

_\- The eyepiece was implanted illegally and without consent by the now defunct and criminal CIRCUS Company when Barton resorted to them for an affordable operation for deafness. S.H.I.E.L.D has replaced the original eyeball with a specialised artificial eyeball with a targeting system, at Barton’s consent and request._

_\- Wears S.H.I.E.L.D approved hearing aid. Fluent in sign._

_\- Currently on mission to trace missing Enhanced Mechas Thor and Loki._

_\- Emergency contact in place. Identity classified._

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha Romanoff – aka. Black Widow

 

The Black Widow had many names. Many faces. She had existed in many lives. She had lived a couple, too.

The first existence was as the Android Assassin. The Android Assassin came into being in the _Red Room_. And for a long, long time, that was where she stayed. The Android Assassin was trained and controlled and experimented on; programs and codes and spyware. The Android Assassin did not feel being taken apart and put back together. The Android Assassin did not feel the pain and the tears that a human would have felt. The Android Assassin had no mind of her own; she just existed, following orders. She had no desires, no thoughts, no personality, no opinions, no love, no hope, no hatred. All of that came later. Because while the Android Assassin could not feel, she did remember.

She remembered the _Red Room_. She remembered her creators; their faces and their cold calculated experiments, uncaring because she was just an Android; she could not feel and they did not care. She remembered the training. They made her act as human as android-ly possible, so that she could complete missions under the guise of a human identity. They watched her fight other androids, mecha, cyborgs, adapted humans and mere humans, so that they could study her fighting patterns and update the technology and experiment. They made her dance, too, routines with the other Androids, but that was more for their entertainment.

Her first mission gave the Android Assassin her first human name. Natalia Alianovna Romanova.

“The name you will go by is Natalia Alianovna Romanova. If you are to act as a human, you must have a human name. These are your identification papers, if you are asked for them. You will answer to the name ‘Natalia’ or ‘Romanova’ until the target has been assassinated.”

The target was assassinated.

And the next.

And the next.

The Android Assassin was very, very good at what she had been created and designed to do.

And although the Android Assassin went under many names over the years, so best to get close enough to kill the targets – mostly humans, adapted humans or cyborgs – it was the name of Natalia Alianovna Romanova that stayed with her, that she used the most as a fake identity. She had been Katya, Elle, Michelle, Ana, Veronika…but it had been Natalia that she had used the most.

But that had been before the _Dark Web._

“This is a great day, Assassin,” one of her creators told her. “We have gotten access to the _Dark Web_.”

The Android Assassin did not have a mind of her own. Even when she was on missions they would talk through her using a microphone, because she did not have the ability to do anything other than answer direct questions or take orders. She could not initiate conversation. So in this instance, she could not reply to ask what that meant.

“Do you want to know what that is?”

“Yes,” she said, because she had been programmed to be able to reply ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and in this instance, ‘yes’ was calculated to be the correct response.

“The _Dark Web_ is a computer program. A very rare and special one. It was made from the Soul Code; one of the Infinity Codes. Once it is downloaded into an android, it can give them their own mind - their own souls. We have been after it for months but now, now we finally have a version. The only problem is, Assassin, that the androids that we have tried it on before now haven’t been strong enough to take the download; their circuits have fried. And while I would have preferred to keep you as you are, you are the one we think will be most capable of taking the download. So that is what we are going to do, Assassin. We are going to expose you to it. And see what happens.”

What happened, was sentience. Sweet, blessed, cruel sentience.

The Android Assassin could think and feel. But she could also love. And hate. Oh yes, she could hate. And all those things that the Android Assassin had remembered throughout its existence? Well, now those memories _hurt._

The Black Widow, they called her then, after the _Dark Web_. Because they thought it was funny. The _Red Room_ ’s first Mecha, created by the _Dark Web,_ and webs were the creation of spiders, and so they named her after a spider. A venomous spider. Because she was still an assassin; one that still had little notion that what she was doing was wrong despite her new sentience, because her only environment had been the _Red Room_ , and in the _Red Room_ , killing was normal. Sentience made her more susceptible to manipulation, too.

So she continued to be their assassin. Their Android Assassin, their Natalia Romanova, and most importantly, their Black Widow.

It did not last forever. Sentience brought some issues eventually. Enough exposure of a newly sentient mind to the outside world, no matter how brief the missions could be, was going to cause complications.

A conscience. For example.

The Black Widow began to ask questions. Not to the _Red Room_ , never in the _Red Room_ ; the Black Widow had learned that the _Red Room_ was not to be trusted, even though her existence had been made up of little else. No, she asked those questions to herself.

She had seen news reports on televisions. She had downloaded information by glancing at holograms, and phone screens, computer projections, televisions in shops, in windows, in houses, in hotels, in stations. Murder was bad. Assassination was bad. Androids were not treated well. Mecha were feared. Was that what she was now? Mecha? A sentient artificial person? The _Dark Web_ and illegal programs like it were apparently bad too. Espionage was bad. Faking an identity was bad.

The _Red Room_ was bad. She was bad.

And that was when something called ‘doubt’ started to kick in.

She continued to do what the _Red Room_ wanted, because the _Red Room_ were not to be trusted and would start to suspect. She had to get out, but she had to take her time. They sent her on fewer missions, because they decided that they had to start to train and condition her all over again. They had to train the Mecha with sentience and emotions and _feelings_ how to win a fight. They had to teach her not to care, like an Android. But she was not an Android anymore. She felt. She remembered. She did not forget.

She did not forget the man that they hired in from main _Hydra_ to help train her and some of the Androids, and the other Mecha that had survived the exposure to the _Dark Web._ They called him a cyborg, but he did not look it. A cyborg, she had learned, had to have a high percentage of vital body parts or organs that were artificial. This man appeared to only have an artificial arm, adorned with the red star they were all so fond of. He was ruthless, clinical, unfeeling. She knew how to do that too, she remembered, so she survived the training.

She was sent back out on missions, but she was still looking for a way out.

And it came, finally, in the form of a man with a bow and arrow.

“Don’t kill me,” he said. He was not surrendering; he still had his arrow aimed at her chest.

The aim of her gun did not waver. “But you are going to kill me.”

“Only if you kill me first, and I’m not going to lie, that would suck.”

The Black Widow cocked her head, confused. “But you cannot kill me if I kill you first. You would be dead.”

“An astute observation, Madame Widow. And you cannot kill me and complete your mission if I kill _you_ first. You would be dead.”

She scoffed. She felt something unfamiliar bubbling up inside her. She wondered if it was ‘humour’. “You will not kill me first.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got great aim.”

“With your fancy eye,” she looked unimpressed but she did not really feel it. This man was undoubtedly impressive. “You do know that artificiality power trumps human power? Your eye versus the whole of me? I do not think so.”

The man only smiled, looking dramatically flattered and pleased. He batted the eyelashes of his real eye. The false one remained steadfastly on target. “You think it’s fancy?”

And that was when that thing she thought could be ‘humour’ broke through.

The Black Widow laughed. She laughed. For the first time. It was so surprising to her that her attention failed, and the next thing she knew, the gun had been knocked from her hand by an arrow.

“I like your laugh,” the man said. “And for that reason I like you. I do not think I will kill you, after all. Unless you still want to kill me?”

“I do not _want_ to do anything they tell me. I _have_ to.”

It was the man’s turn to cock his head. “But you’re a Mecha now, right? So technically, you don’t _have_ to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I have had no other options,” she said, automatic, almost like that ingrained Android Assassin was taking control of her answer.

The man lowered his bow. “I’m offering you another option now. Would you like to take it?”

And wasn’t _that_ a question? What did she _like_? What did she _want_?

She looked at the man. “Is the option to do good?” she asked. “Will I be good?”

The assassination of innocent people was bad. The murder of innocent people was bad. The _Red Room_ was bad. The Android Assassin was bad. The _Dark Web_ was bad. Natalia Romanova was bad. The Black Widow did not want to be bad.

“Do you want to be good?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to be good.”

***

“I’m Clint,” the man told her as they sat in the back of a jeep half an hour later. “Clint Barton. But I also go by ‘Hawkeye’.” He looked at her, smiling in a pleasant way that she was not used to having aimed at her. “Do you have a name?” He asked her. “Other than the ‘Android Assassin’ or ‘Black Widow’?”

“The _Dark Web_ gave me a conscious, a mind, a personality. A _person,_ ” The Black Widow said. “So I could adopt the person-name that the _Red Room_ used most as my human alias for my missions. Natalia Alianovna Romanova.”

“You _could_ ,” he agreed. “But do you _want_ to?” He kept asking that, and it should have been highly annoying, but every time he did do it, she realised that she hadn’t actually been acting in the way that she wanted, only in the way that she thought she should. “I’m not gunna lie; if I can convince Director Fury to let you be a part of A.R.M.E.D operations, I don’t know if S.H.I.E.L.D will like you using the moniker given to you so you could assassinate people. I’ve had a hard enough time convincing Fury to let me bring you back with me alive as it is.”

She had wondered who Clint had been aggressively arguing with over the device in his ear; the device that was not the one designed to help him to hear.

“I can change it,” She shrugged. She then stopped, a little taken aback that she had produced such a human gesture without thinking about it; a human gesture of a body that was entirely artificial but for its consciousness. “My name has changed many times. I do not mind taking on one more.”

“We don’t have to change it too much,” Clint insisted. “Not if you like ‘Natalia’. We can just switch it up a little, if you like. It’ll help you distance yourself from your creators and you can give yourself a new name.”

Black Widow liked that idea. So she sat for a moment, thoughtful. She went into her artificial brain and scrolled through a list of names that sounded like ‘Natalia’. There was Naomi, Natalie, Natasha, Natonya, Nova…she scrolled back to Natasha.

“Natasha,” Black Widow said it aloud, testing it. “I like Natasha. I have never been a ‘Natasha’ before.” She then tested some surnames in her mind, rifling through them with her systematic artificial brain. “Natasha Romanoff,” she landed upon, before trying a new thing and ‘smiling’ at Clint Barton. She tapped her head, “Turn the _Red Room_ ‘off’; Natasha Romanoff.”

Clint had beamed back at her. “I like it. Nice to meet you Natasha Romanoff.”

“Nice to meet you too, Clint Barton,” she said.

 _I think you may have just saved my artificial life,_ she did not say.

***

When Natasha had become ‘Nat’, Natasha could not quite remember. One day she just realised that Clint was calling her it and was never quite sure of when he had started. She liked it though.

She liked having a friend, a partner on missions. She liked not working or feeling alone.

And, several years later, when Clint placed the trust in her to introduce her to his wife, Laura, and his two children, Cooper and Lila, and they had called her ‘Nat’ and eventually ‘Auntie Nat’, Natasha liked it even more. And it was a great trust Clint had placed in her. She, Clint and Fury were the only people in S.H.I.E.L.D to know that Clint even had a family. She treasured that trust, and she treasured the Barton family. And she would be permanently shut down before she would ever, ever betray that trust. It was impossible for her to betray that trust. The Black Widow had been made of very, very strong stuff.

Agent Natasha Romanoff was a person she liked, too. Agent Natasha Romanoff had worked hard over the years, as one of only a few Mecha agents in S.H.I.E.L.D. She had been a great assassin, but she was an even better agent. Her ability to change her face and hair style and colour – something she had been designed to do to more easily hide in plain sight and assassinate people – came in very handy for her S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D missions (though she most favoured her neutral mode image; her short, red hair and naturally designed face). She had become trusted, and a favoured agent of Director Nick Fury. She and Clint worked together on many missions. They travelled all over the world.

She was more than capable of working solo, too, however. She was an old-hand at solo missions after all, though the targets had been very different, before. And all her solo missions were successes. Apart from that one time she was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran and somebody shot out the tires of the vehicle. She lost control of the vehicle, went straight over a cliff and although she had pulled them both out, their attacker had shot the engineer straight through her. She had been in the tech department for days afterwards as they had tried to get her wires and circuits back in order. That had not bothered her, even if she could feel it in a way an android would never have been able to. What had bothered her was that arm, with its red star. The man who was not a cyborg but was called one. The Winter Cyborg; she had learned was the name that S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D called him. Well, those that believed he existed. Most of the intelligence community didn’t. He was a ghost story to most, because he had been credited for over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years. But that was impossible. Because apparently his face never changed. It hadn’t changed as Natasha had looked upon it in Iran, years and years after she had been made to train against him in the _Red Room._ But as a cyborg, or, more accurately, an adapted human, he should have aged. He should be old. And while many suggested that the same moniker had just been handed over from _Hydra_ creation to _Hyrda_ creation she knew that that was not true. She did not doubt in the slightest that it had all been the same man. Because he was a man, she was sure of it. An adapted human, with his artificial arm. He wasn’t really a cyborg. Cyborgs were much more artificial than that.

Tony Stark. Now _he_ was a Cyborg.

Natasha was put undercover by Fury for a while, pretending to be Natalie Rushman, hired by Stark as a PA for a while, as she secretly observed his developments of his Arc Reactor – which kept his artificial organs in check – and also his Iron Man suits, which he was putting most of his focus on. Despite contending with Stark’s eccentricity and intelligence, the astuteness of Pepper Potts and James Rhodes, his protective human girlfriend and human best friend, and also Happy Hogan, Stark’s Mecha bodyguard and chauffeur, her observation went well. Eventually, when Fury was satisfied with the information provided, Fury told her to stand down, revealing her true identity to Stark, and introducing himself, and laying out the whole reason for Phil Coulson’s pestering, Natasha’s observations and Fury’s interest.

The MechAvengers Initiative.

Natasha was going to be the Mecha representative of the initiative. She had been proud and pleased when Fury had asked her. Clint was going to be the representative for Adapted Humans. And Stark, because of course he had agreed to be in a cool new initiative that would soon be very much in the public eye, would be the Cyborg representative. Stark’s impressive tech - that Natasha had come to know well – Jarvis, Dum-E, the un-manned Iron Man suits, would represent AI, Robots and Androids, respectively.

Clint was put in charge of collecting the representatives for Enhanced Mecha; Thor and Loki of _Asgard_ and _Jotunheim_ creation.

And Natasha was put in charge of convincing the proposed human representative, Dr Bruce Banner, and also of tracking down the supposed whereabouts of the Original Mecha, the CAPT-AI-N (America) Steve Rogers.

Natasha went for the human first, though Dr Bruce Banner was not just any human. He was psychologically bonded to the partly-original-mecha and partly-sentient green ex-fighter bot known as the Hulk. The Hulk was infamous for its rage issues. Rage issues that had been transferred, and therefore rooted from and inside, Bruce Banner himself.

S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D had staked out a building on the outskirts of the city and had it surrounded. Natasha waited inside as a child they had paid rushed to find the scientist, who was currently acting as a freelance medical doctor on the cheap for residents who couldn’t afford any other kind of health care. It was a crude move, all being told, Natasha recognised that, but it was necessary. They knew that if Dr Banner even got the slightest hint that someone knew of his location, let alone want to speak with him, he and the Hulk would be gone.

The plan did work, Banner followed the child, and then Natasha found herself face-to-face with Dr Bruce Banner, the man and myth. She found herself momentarily disappointed that the Hulk did not appear to be with him.

“You know, for a man who is trying to be low-key and keep his pet fighter bot out of sight, you picked a hell of a place to settle; the middle of a hectic city.”

“Do you see him?” Banner asked, wafting his arms around him as though to prove his point. He did not bother denying it, because it was clear that she knew exactly who he was.

“Is he nearby?”

“He could be,” Banner said.

As if on cue, a voice sounded in her ear; one of her agents positioned outside. “ _The Hulk is outside. Nearing the building. Do you want us to let him enter?”_

“Yes,” she said, to both Banner and her agent. “He could be. Will he join us?”

“Maybe,” Banner shifted. “You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart. I uh…I assume the whole place is surrounded?”

“ _The Hulk is in the building with you._ ”

“Just you and me,” she offered to Banner. She lied. She was a good liar; androids didn’t have tells. “And him,” she nodded at where the Hulk had appeared in the doorway.

Androids didn’t have tells but humans did. Banner had many of them. He ignored the Hulk’s presence, more occupied on the scheme that had tricked him there in the first place. “And your actress buddy,” he waved after the small child who had run away as soon as she had led Banner into the building. That was a tell; he seemed to flap his hands around when he was nervous. “Is she a spy too? Do they start that young?” he asked. “If they aren’t artificial, of course.”

Natasha didn’t even blink. The man was a doctor and he had worked with Mecha and Androids before. His dad had built and pitted fighter bots. She knew that he had already worked out that she had been an Android, and probably that she was now Mecha too; his intelligent gaze was flickering over her, never staying in one place. Nervous habit. Another tell.

“If they aren’t artificial,” she agreed. “Like me. Like your friend. Is he going to be a problem?”

Banner shook his head. The Hulk was standing stone-still behind him like an oversized shadow, staring at her blankly. “Not if there isn’t any trouble,” Banner said.

“There won’t be.”

“Who are you?” Banner asked her.

 “Natasha Romanoff,” she replied.

“Are you here to kill me, Miss Romanoff?” Banner asked, gaze darting about again. “Because that’s not going to work out for everyone.” He shifted. The Hulk mirrored his movement.

 “No. No. Of course not,” She said, dismissively. She realised that that momentary disappointment that she had felt when she had thought that the Hulk wasn’t going to be present, should have been momentary relief. He was an intimidating bodyguard, to say the least, not that Natasha did not think that she could take him down if it came to that. “I am here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D A.R.M.E.D,” Banner repeated. “How did they find me?”

“We never lost you, doctor. We have kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent.”

“Why?”

“Its Director, Nick Fury, seems to think you are a trustworthy ally. Will you hear what he has to say?”

Banner cocked his head. So did the Hulk. “What if I say no?”

Natasha found herself cocking her head too; automatic artificial response. “I’ll persuade you.”

“And what if the…” Banner jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the Hulk, where he hulked behind him. “Other guy says no?”

Natasha allowed herself a proper glance at the Hulk. “You have both been more than a year without an incident. I do not think you want to break that streak.”

Banner shrugged. “I don’t always get what I want.”

“Doctor, we are trying to create a group of people…”

“A group? Those I actively try to avoid.”

She stopped, patient. She did not need to take a breath. She didn’t breathe.

Natasha motioned for Banner to sit, and the pair of them seated themselves on crates, either side of another, larger crate that had apparently been used as a table by the building’s previous occupants. The Hulk continued to stand like a metal statue in the background.

Natasha began to explain once again; “We are trying to gather a group of people who will represent the seven main categories of the current human-artificial statuses; Human, Adapted Human, Cyborg, Android, Mecha, Enchanced Mecha and Original Mecha.”

 “Ah, I see. So Fury is after the monster, not me.”

“Not that he’s told me. It’s you he wants, to represent the humans. With your close association to artificial, he thinks you would be a suitable candidate.”

“Close association,” Banner laughed, a little bitter. “Sure. He just wants me, he tells you. And he tells you everything?”

“Talk to Fury. He needs you on this.”

“And he needs the Hulk to represent the Original Mecha, no doubt. That’s a bad idea.”

“No. We have…someone else…in mind for that.”

“Someone else?” Banner frowned. “There is no-one else. The Hulk is the closest thing to an Original Mecha that has existed since the CAPT-AI-N (America).”

“Yes, we know.”

Banner was watching her, calculatingly, but undoubtedly interested now, by this talk of Original Mechas; something that he had dedicated, and quite literally given, a part of his life to.

“And Fury doesn’t want to take me out? Take the Hulk out.”

“No.”

“General Ross does. Why do you think I’m hiding?”

“Your involvement in the initiative means that Ross won’t be able to touch you. You will be under S.H.I.E.L.D’s protection.”

Banner scoffed. “S.H.I.E.L.D’s protection. No offence, but I’m not going to put too much faith on S.H.I.E.L.D’s protection.” He was getting angry, defensive, she could tell. “This is just another government scheme like the one that got me here in the first place. And it’s going to put me in the public eye. Ross and all the illegal companies in the world will see me and try to…”

“S.H.I.E.L.D can protect you, it…”

Banner slammed his hand onto the table-crate, half rising from his seat. “Stop lying to me!” he shouted. And the Hulk put its artificial fist through the nearest wall.

Natasha was on her feet in an instant, gun raised and pointed at them, steady. She could hear her agents babbling in her ear, waiting for a sign from her to storm the building if needed.

Bruce got to his feet too, instantly calm again. He held placating hands up, one palm towards Natasha and the other towards the Hulk, telling him to stop, to calm.

“I’m sorry, that was mean,” Banner said to Natasha, turning back towards her. The Hulk was standing still again, but was making metallic grinding sounds with its jaw. “I just wanted to see what you’d do. Why don’t we do this the easy way, where you don’t use that and the other guy doesn’t make a mess? Okay? Natasha…”

Natasha believed him. She lowered her gun. “Stand down. We’re good here,” she said into her earpiece, to stop her agents from shooting or running in and turning this into a battle zone.

Bruce raised a sarcastic, knowing eyebrow. “Just you and me?” he repeated Natasha’s words from earlier. Untrusting and smug that he had been proven right in not trusting her.

“And him,” she said again, nodding sharply towards the Hulk.

“And him. Though I wouldn’t be too worried; he’s made more like you than me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Natasha countered.

Banner grinned a grim grin that did not reach his eyes. “You got me.”

“And have I got you for the Initiative? Will you at least hear what Fury has to say? You can ask him about Ross, all of it. It could be the end to the running. And trying to hide your ginormous shadow.”

Banner stopped, and frowned again, thoughtful. “If it keeps you guys off my back, I’ll hear what he has to say so long as it’s kept quiet. I make no promises.”

It was good enough for Natasha.

One MechaAvengers Initiative recruitment process complete. One to go.

Now she just had to find CAPT-AI-N (America).

 

****_Confidential File - Director Nick Fury_ ** **

****_PROPOSED CANDIDATES FOR THE MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE:_ ** **

**NAME:** _Natasha Romanoff (previously Natalia Alianovna Romanova)_  
 **ALIAS:** _Black Widow / The Android Assassin_  
 **PROFESSION:** _S.H.I.E.L.D Agent (A.R.M.E.D branch)_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:** _Mecha_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _The Red Room_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Known – New York_  
 **STATUS:** _Already part of Initiative. Employee of S.H.I.E.L.D. Reports to Nick Fury._

  
**NOTES:**

_\- Android created by the Soviet Red Room lab. Later became a sentient Mecha after being subjected to a download from the Dark Web._

_\- Despite creation by and previous service to the Red Room, Romanoff has been loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D for a decade. Trusted._

_\- Currently on missions to recruit Dr Bruce Banner and the Hulk to the initiative and to investigate the true fate of Original Mecha CAPT-AI-N (America)._

 

* * *

 

 

Steve Rogers – aka. CAPT-AI-N (America)

 

  
Steve Rogers had been born with a body that seemed to not want to carry him. It failed him. A lot.

Asthma, chronic colds and fevers, easy fatigability, heart palpitations – just a weak heart in general, really – and a weak immune system. Weak and sickly all round. He never grew over 5”4, a skinny sickly thing with pale skin and dull blonde hair. His body failed him a lot. It did not want to carry him. His heart did not want to sustain him.

He hadn’t had a lot of friends, but he had been happy. His mother had been his shining star, his angel, with her blonde hair and her patient, caring love for him. She was the most selfless, hardworking and kind person Steve had ever met, and that wasn’t just bias because she was his mother.

He knew it broke her heart whenever he got ill, which was often, and although he had had all the standard vaccinations, she had had no hope in hell of affording the advanced ones. And to add salt to that wound, Sarah Rogers worked as a nurse in a specialised hospital in New York that was at the forefront of research and usage of the most modern technology and medical equipment in the world. She slaved away in that hospital every single day, but the costs of its treatments were so expensive that she couldn’t afford any of that modern treatment for Steve.

When he was in his teens, they discovered that he had developed illnesses that would eventually become terminal. He had been given a life expectancy of around twenty-five years.

Sarah Rogers had been heartbroken. It doused her glow a little. Steve, however? It only ignited his. Steve had always been a righteous kid, a big believer in standing up for the little guy – even when those little guys were taller than him – and he could not stand bullies. He got in more school yard and back alley fights than his poor mother’s nerves could take, which was why he didn’t tell her about half of them.

She didn’t tell him things, too. She hadn’t told him that at that hospital, for almost a year, she had been friends with a visiting doctor doing research. Dr Abraham Erskine. Steve did not know that she had confided with Erskine about Steve’s health, or that Erskine had decided that he wanted to help Sarah and Steve. Steve found out none of this until they day that Sarah got terminally sick and he met Erskine at her hospital bedside.

She worked every damn day in that hospital, and she was packed into the busiest ward it possessed.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” the man – who had just introduced himself as Dr Erskine – said to Steve.

“It isn’t fair,” Steve said, sniffed, looked back to his mother. “The system’s fucked.”

He heard Dr Erskine chuckle sadly. “Yes, Steven,” he agreed. “The system is fucked.”

“Language, Steve,” his mother murmured from her bed, waking properly for the first time in hours.

Steve pulled a face but was immediately taking his mother’s hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it.

His mother smiled at him weakly, before her gaze found Dr Erskine.

“Oh, hello Abraham,” she said. Her voice was raspy. “You and Steve have finally met.”

“We have,” Dr Erskine said.

“Will you help him?” she asked him. “Even when I‘m gone?”

“I don’t need help. And you aren’t going anywhere,” Steve vowed fiercely.

“I wouldn’t if I had a choice, my darling,” she told him. Because she loved him.

But she didn’t have a choice. So she left him the next day.

Steve, still young at eighteen, organised her funeral, and although Sarah had had a lot of friends, and many people attended, Steve had never felt quite so alone.

Dr Erskine was there. “Anything you need, Steven, anything at all,” he said. “You just let me know.”

“Thanks Dr Erskine,” Steve said, “But I can get by on my own.”

“But you don’t have to,” Dr Erskine said. He handed Steve a card with his contact details on it. “Stay in touch.”

It took a few weeks for Steve to get in touch with Dr Erskine, but once he did, they sent messages every week or so and later began to meet for coffee. Dr Erskine had known Steve’s mother well and they would sit and reminisce, or they would sit and not do or say anything at all. Dr Erskine would sometimes talk about his research; he apologised often that he had not been able to develop anything quick enough to save Steve’s mom, but Steve understood; she had been struck down and taken so damn fast. Dr Erskine was not a wealthy man; the money he earned went back into the research, but he did buy a couple of Steve’s larger art pieces. He liked to talk to Steve about his art, and the comic strips Steve would draw and post in the online journals, making just enough from sales to get by. Dr Erskine followed Steve’s blog where Steve bemoaned all the injustices of the country and its system, and the steep descent of the world into inevitable war; The Great Technology War, some were starting to call it. Steve followed Dr Erskine’s blog with all its scientific jargon that Steve did not quite understand.

This friendship and period of existence lasted for four years, because after four years, Steve’s time was up. His health had slowly been deteriorating, and then he got sick. Really sick. And given a deadline.

“They gave me a life expectancy of twenty-five once. I haven’t even made it to twenty-three,” Steve told Abraham, where Abraham sat sombrely by his hospital bed. “I thought I’d get there; to twenty-five at least. I was so determined to get there and make the most of it. I know now that it was false hope but…”

“Not necessarily,” Abraham said.

Steve turned his head to sluggishly blink at him. “Pardon?”

“I’ve been working on a project, Steve, for some time now. Since before your mother died. It was her idea, actually.”

Steve narrowed his eyes, “What idea? What project?”

“I have been calling it ‘Project Rebirth’,” Abraham said. “And it is so that you don’t have to die.”

“I don’t think I have a choice,” Steve said, because his mother hadn’t had a choice.

“Actually,” Abraham said. “This would give you a choice.”

Steve frowned, “A choice to live or die?”

“Yes,” Abraham said. “But there are conditions. And risks. Many risks.”

“I’ve always taken risks,” Steve said slowly, intrigued. “Mom said I was reckless.”

“Does that mean you will hear what I have been working on?”

Steve nodded, his hair mussing further against the pillow. Anything not to be bedridden anymore. Anything not to be dying. “Tell me more.”

And so Abraham told him. He told him that before Steve’s mom had died Abraham had had an idea for creating a memory drive, of sorts, that could store someone’s mind; their conscience, thoughts, feelings, behaviours, memories. He had been developing it over the four years between Steve’s mom’s death and Steve being on his deathbed. The choice that he presented Steve was this; he could live for a few more days and then die of his illness, or he could transfer his mind to a drive and live.

But with the second choice there were conditions. The most significant was that it wouldn’t be a human body that Steve’s mind would be transferred into. It had to be an artificial host. Abraham promised that he would be able to make an android that would look just like Steve, but artificial. The condition that followed _that_ was, of course, the fact that Steve wouldn’t just _live;_ he could potentially live for as long as his body existed for, which would be far longer than any human’s life. Hell, with the right care, it could be forever. The third condition, the risk-taker condition, was that Abraham’s plans for this andriod body that could accept the implant of a real human mind were expensive. Far too expensive for the funds he had. Raising those funds would take time, but Steve did not have much time. So the third condition was that if Steve’s mind was successfully transferred onto the drive, it would have to wait for a body, and it could take years.

Steve was going to die either way. He just had to make a choice; be killed in a matter of days by his terminal illness, or die more immediately when Abraham transferred his mind onto a memory drive; whether the subsequent transferral into an artificial host was a successful operation or not.

Steve Rogers had been born with a body that did not want to carry him. It had failed.

His body had been so inflicted with illnesses and weak immunity that they had not even allowed him to conscript to the army. He had been unable to win a fight against bullies, but by god he fought anyway. He wanted to carry on fighting for what was right. But that meant that he had to live.

Abraham was offering him a second chance at living. And Steve did not know if he was being selfish, but it wasn’t the potential immortality – that many would pay millions for – that he wanted. No. He just wanted to live a little longer. To keep fighting for justice, for what was right, against the bullies. He wanted to join the war efforts of the inevitable technology war to make sure his people were kept safe from the grasping hands of huge, evil corporations like Hydra. And as well as all of that, there were still things he had never gotten to do. So many people he wanted to help. He had never fallen in love and he wanted to know what it felt like.

Abraham had put so much of his time and spare resources into this project for the last four years, for Steve’s mother, and Steve hadn’t had a clue about it. It had been Steve’s mom’s wish for Steve to live a little longer. It had been her suggestion, and Abraham had deemed him worthy of saving.

And so Steve decided to let himself be saved. So that he in turn, hopefully, if he survived the mind transferral and then the implantation into an artificial body – something that had never truly been attempted before, let alone done, not least of all because any kind of such experimentation was technically illegal – then he could help save people too.

And so Steve chose to die.

Abraham checked him out of the hospital and took him to his own home, where Steve lay on something that was more an operating table than a hospital bed.

“So just, transferring a human consciousness onto a memory drive,” Steve said, “Easy right?”

“Easy,” Abraham said. Because they both knew that if the project failed, Steve would never know the difference. He would be dead.

“I’ll see you on the other side?” Steve asked, as the needles injected into his arms pumped him full of a drug that was making him drowsy.

“On the other side, Steven,” Abraham promised.

And so, Steve died. He died on his own terms. It felt like a final ‘fuck you’ to the body that had so devastatingly failed him.

He woke up in a body that apparently could carry him; an artificial body that could carry his human mind. A body that could not fail from illness or a weak immune system.

Project Rebirth had worked. Steve had been reborn. And he was artificial. An Android.

“Mecha,” Howard Stark corrected him, when Steve had slumped out of the machine that had successfully allowed safe implantation of the drive holding his mind into the artificial body he was currently staring down at; bigger and more muscular than his human body had ever been. “It’s a new terminology. I coined it. A Mecha; a man with the body of a machine. A mechanical human. A human consciousness inside of an artificial body. An android, but it can think and feel and love and hate and make its own decisions, speak its own mind, because it is, was, originally, _human_.”

“Mecha,” Steve repeated, looking up at this strange man that he would come to know well, beaming beside Abraham.

“Mecha,” Abraham agreed, holding out a hand to help pull Steve to his feet.

Howard Stark, Steve learned later, had had the technological means and the research on AI advancements that Abraham had needed to make Steve’s artificial body. Abraham had known that Stark would likely jump at the chance to help with the project. The only problem was that Stark hadn’t had the funds to help make it happen.

Abraham had wanted to make a body as quickly as was possible, because he hadn’t known how long the drive holding Steve’s mind would last; if the transferral had worked at all. Because Steve had essentially been a guinea pig, Abraham had had no idea how long he could risk leaving it if it had truly worked. It had not taken Abraham long to learn that the US army, in the impending outbreak of war, had been looking to fund a new project for an Android AI Super Soldier. Abraham had given them his pitch, and told them that he could give them a sentient android that could think and act for itself. He just hadn’t mentioned the most crucial detail; that that sentience was because it would have the mind of a real human; there were laws and all kinds of regulations against that. He had been given the funding and only then he had approached Stark. He told Stark the truth, and Stark had positively leapt at the opportunity to work with Abraham on the project, to be at the forefront of a brand new science. He hadn’t given a damn about the illegalities.

They had built an artificial body to the military’s specifications; a robot that could change its appearance, camouflage, speak a number of languages, have superior strength. Steve would discover all of these things and more in the hours and days that followed. Abraham had also kept his promise and had made him in the image of his old body; his face, his eyes, his hair colour and skin tone were all the same as his old body. But his stature was not. Abraham had built Steve’s neutral form six inches taller and much more muscular than Steve’s human form had been; claiming that he had made Steve into the man that Steve could have been in life if he hadn’t had all the health complications that had stunted his growth. But, due to the military’s camouflage and appearance-change demands, Abraham had also made the body so that the smallest that Steve could turn back to was his original human form.

The whole process - from Steve dying that first time when his consciousness was taken from his body and transferred onto the drive, until that drive was accepted by that specially designed artificial body and Steve had woken up – had taken three years. For three years Steve’s mind had been frozen in time, held on that drive and safely stored in Abraham’s labs.

And then he had been woken up. Reborn.

But Abraham; Abraham died. The day that Steve woke up, after those three long years, Abraham died.

An enemy agent had infiltrated the labs for information. He had killed Abraham. And Steve? Steve had chased him down, running faster, jumping further, feeling stronger than he had ever done before in his life.

The army found this performance of their funded artificial super soldier project impressive enough to send Steve straight to training, under the watchful eyes of Agent Peggy Carter and Howard Stark. And from there, straight into the Great Technology War, which had begun during Steve’s second year ‘asleep’, and was by then in full force.

Steve was keen to join the war efforts. He wanted to help people, to fight for and protect what was right, to rid the world of organisations like Hydra _;_ cruel, grasping, dangerous and inhumane. He had known the war had been coming for years, and his attempts to join the army in his late teens in anticipation had been written off with a big ‘4F’ for all his health problems. But now, as a specifically engineered Mecha super soldier, he could contribute. Make a difference.

It hurt, a little, to know that he had to keep up the pretence of a sentient android without true human feeling; to pretend not to be human. It hurt more that ‘Steve Rogers’ and his human identity became a secondary one.

Because they called him CAPT-AI-N (America).

The army only called him CAPT-AI-N (America) at first, and then ‘Rogers’ a little later, when they began to accept that he was a little different to other androids. Peggy and Howard called him ‘Steve’, but that was because they knew he had been human; a secret that he had to keep from everyone else, because the process Abraham and Howard had achieved was illegal, and the discovery of the truth would put Howard and Peggy in a lot of trouble, leave Abraham’s memory tarnished, and Steve would likely be shut down.

He did not want that to happen. So he vowed to keep his true identity - the truth behind his sentience – a secret. He expected the hardship of keeping said secret and keeping up the pretence of being merely a manmade Mecha. He expected the battle, the bloodshed, the trauma, the tactics.

He hadn’t expected to fall in love.

On Steve’s first day on the lines, he encountered James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes, of the US 107th Infantry, an Engineer that fixed up androids and military tech and machines. Barnes was quick of wit and words, intelligent, calm and collected. He also looked the perfect poster boy of the army; suave in his uniform, short brunet hair styled to perfection, kind eyes and a handsome face. Steve liked him immediately, and didn’t correct Barnes when Barnes initially mistook Steve for human. Unless told, any human Steve met assumed him to be human and not artificial; Abraham and Howard had made such a ground-breaking invention that Steve looked and moved more human than any artificial being that had come before him.

Steve didn’t tell Barnes, at first, because he hoped that if Barnes believed him to be human, he would treat him and like him as a human, before the army inevitably revealed Steve to actually be artificial; a new android project they were testing.

As it turned out, Steve only kept Barnes in the dark for a matter of hours, as Colonel Phillips decided to place Steve in an elite combat unit, made up of some of the best specialised officers in the regiment. James Barnes was amongst them, and as the specialised Engineer of the unit, was given the role of Steve’s handler.

James Barnes was fascinated by Steve at first, and a little cautious of him, as the others were too; Dum-Dum, Gabe, Morita, Dernier, Falsworth. They did not trust that an android could be depended upon to make humane, un-tactical decisions regardless of Steve’s ‘supposed’ sentience; they had seen androids leave injured men in the field in order to complete a mission, because androids didn’t have human connection. But Steve _was_ human and because they could never know it, he instead went out to prove that he was different to other androids.

It took time. It took missions and Steve working with the team and helping the team and saving the team and being wounded for the team, for them to accept him as an asset, to treat him like one of their own, for him to truly integrate into the Howling Commandos, as they came to be known.

Steve proved his worth, made friends, and was treated less and less like a subservient android, and more like a comrade in arms. It meant that he got to call the Howlies by their nicknames, and he got to call James Barnes ‘Bucky.’

Bucky had warmed to Steve the quickest. He accepted and trusted Steve before any of the others. They had worked together closely, and Steve had been falling in love with him since that first day. Steve had at first thought that the hope of reciprocation had been a fool’s dream; Steve was artificial, secret-human-mind or not, and Bucky was his engineer, his handler. But Bucky quickly began to treat him like a best friend, like a brother, like a…well. They were inseparable.

It took Steve being injured for the Howlies for Steve to realise that he meant as much to Bucky as Bucky meant to him;

“You aren’t dying Steve.” Bucky hushed him gently. Steve had slammed his shield and himself on top of a bomb to protect the Howlies and had had the vast majority of the artificial skin of one shoulder ripped up. “I’m just going to turn you off, just for a little while until I can fix you. I’ll get you switched back on as soon as I can. I promise. I promise.”

“You. Swear?” Steve asked. His voice-box had been busted and jumpy with the damage, his words halting and Steve had never sounded so unlike himself. It scared him. But not as much as he had been terrified of Bucky turning him off to fix him. Being turned off felt like dying all over again. But Bucky with his soothing words and concerned gaze made him feel so much safer.

“I swear it, Stevie. Ok? I swear it. You and me? We’re in it for the long haul. ‘Till the end of the line.”

“End. Of. The. Line,” Steve repeated, reaching out with his good arm, and Bucky immediately took his hand.

“Yeah, pal,” Bucky said. “I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”

It took Bucky keeping that promise and doing everything within his power to fix Steve entirely, for Steve to realise that he trusted Bucky enough to confide the truth to him, because Bucky deserved to know. Steve loved him, and he wanted Bucky to know;

 _“_ I want to tell you the truth,” Steve said. “The secret I’ve been keeping. I really do. And it’s not that I don’t trust you, because I trust you more than anybody in the world. I’m just afraid that if you know the truth, you might not trust me anymore. That you might see me as some kind of…abomination.”

Steve was relieved beyond words when Bucky shook his head. “No. No I would never think that of you. Hey,” he ducked his head to catch Steve’s lowered gaze, taking Steve’s notebook out of his hands. “Steve, I promised end of the line, pal. Let me prove it to you.”

And so Steve wasted no time in his confession; “I was human.”

He feared so many reactions; disbelief, fear, anger, mistrust. But he never should have underestimated Bucky Barnes.

“How?” Bucky simply asked. “Tell me.”

And so Steve told him. Everything.

And Bucky kept his secret.

It took Bucky and the Howlies being taken prisoner by Hydra for Steve and Bucky to finally confess their feelings to one another. Steve had come back from a separate mission to discover that the Howlies had been missing for days, and learned that a rescue mission was going to take another couple of days. So Steve had gone AWOL, stolen a truck, found the Hydra base where the Howlies and other soldiers were being held prisoner and took down the base singlehandedly. He found Bucky strapped to a table and looking so pale and sick, with needle marks in his arms. Steve managed to get Bucky over a metal walkway as the base collapsed around them, but the walkway suddenly fell down between them; Bucky stuck on one side, and Steve on the other;

 _“_ Go!” Steve shouted across the gap. “Get out of here!”

“No!” Bucky sounded desperate, “Not without you!”

“I’m trying to keep you safe, damn it!”

“And what about you?” Bucky shouted back. “You think I can just leave you here? I can’t leave you here Steve! I won’t!”

“I’m going to have to jump. I might not make it,” Steve warned, failing to hide his panic. “I don’t want you to see…”

“You’re Steve fucking Rogers!” Bucky choked back to him. “Of course you’ll make it. You’ll make it because we aren’t finished here, pal, this ain’t the end of the fucking line.”

Steve stared at him for a second, taking in that beautiful face, so glad to have seen Bucky again, alive, after having been so afraid that he had been too late to save him, before he prepared to jump the gap, backing up several paces.

And Steve decided that it was now or never. “I love you,” Steve yelled to Bucky across the gap.

“Yeah, well,” Bucky shouted back. “I ain’t saying it back until you get over here so I can say it right into your damn face.”

Happiness swelled at the confirmation that Bucky’s feelings were returned, even as he mentally geared himself up for a leap of a distance he wasn’t sure his artificial body – for all its extra strength – could even make. “You’re a jerk,” Steve called back.

Another chunk of walkway fell away. Bucky was visibly panicking. “Just fucking jump, punk!”

And Steve could never deny Bucky Barnes anything. He jumped. How he made it across such a distance he wasn’t sure he’d ever know. Maybe the confirmation that Bucky loved him too had given him the power to make it. Love could make people do crazy things, so Steve had heard. 

Steve almost collided into Bucky, and swerved to avoid impact. Thankfully, Bucky caught him and pulled Steve towards him to stop Steve from skidding straight off the other side of the walkway.

Steve and Bucky’s faces ended up centimetres apart, and so Steve said hopefully, and a little smugly; “I’m right in your damn face, now, Buck.”

Bucky just grinned right back, charming and so, so beautiful. “I’m in love with you, Steve Rogers.”

From that moment Steve and Bucky maintained a secret relationship. Relations between men was not frowned upon as it once had been in the past; but relationships between humans and androids was taboo; feared and a cause for disgust. And Bucky as Steve’s engineer and handler would be faced with a whole world of trouble if they were discovered, because nobody knew that Steve had his own human mind, capable of making his own choices and having his own, real, human feelings. It was difficult to keep their relationship secret, but Steve and Bucky managed, because it was just so, so worth the risk;

 _“_ You sure you weren’t made for this, baby doll?” Bucky moaned as Steve rolled his hips, bearing down on Bucky’s cock.

“Made for sex?” Steve laughed, breathless, little hitches in his voice as he rode Bucky slowly, languidly. “I don’t know, you’ll have to bring it up with Stark.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Bucky snapped his hips up, sharp, forcing a loud gasp out of Steve.

Steve laughed again. “I don’t know if he made me for sex,” he said, throwing his head back and exposing his throat to Bucky’s hot, sinful mouth, and those plush, soft lips. “Or if he made me for you.”

“Fuck,” Bucky choked, coming hard and sudden.

Bucky Barnes was the love of Steve’s life.

Bucky knew as much about Steve’s new artificial body as Steve himself. Bucky had explored every inch of him, loved every inch of him. And Steve in turn had the privilege of knowing Bucky Barnes better than anybody else in the whole world. They belonged to each other. They belonged together. They were each other’s whole world.

So losing Bucky, losing him was like the whole world got ripped away, just out of reach of Steve’s outstretched hand.

Bucky fell off that train, and there was nothing Steve could do to save him.

And Steve was left clinging onto the side of that train with a number of bombs, heading full-speed towards a town, where they would be detonated on the spot, or distributed and set off in multiple areas. Whatever the intention Hydra had with those bombs, Steve was going to make sure that they wouldn’t get any of them.

With no Hydra agents left alive on board to stop him, Steve managed to get to the head of the train, where the controls and destination were locked in and unchangeable.

There was only one thing he could do.

He activated his radio. “Come in. This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?”

He heard Morita say “Captain Rogers, what is your…” before Peggy must have snatched the radio from his hand.

“Steve, is that you? Are you alright?”

“Peggy,” Steve choked, his emotions spilling immediately at the sound of his friend and confidant’s voice. “Bucky,” he said his name and his heart broke all over again. “Bucky’s dead,” he sobbed. And if he had tears to cry, he would be crying. Crying uncontrollably and never be able to stop. “Bucky’s dead.”

“Oh god, Steve,” Peggy’s voice was clear over the radio, the pain in her tone at the news was audible. “I’m so, so sorry. I am. We all are. But…I’m sorry but remember your mission. It’s important. What‘s happening with the train?”

“Without Bucky, the bombs are still active. The train’s controls are stuck, the destination’s locked in. I can’t make it stop. While it’s on the tracks at least.”

“What do you mean ‘while it’s on the tracks’?”

“I can take it off the tracks. Crash it.”

“No wait! Don’t…don’t Steve. Wait. Let me get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do.”

“There’s not enough time, Peg. This thing’s moving too fast. If it’s going to go off the tracks it needs to go off here, where there won’t be any casualties.”

“Any casualties but you!”

“I’m ‘Mecha’, Peg,” Steve said, tone flat, “I don’t count. I’ll be DIA, destroyed in action, not KIA.”

“You know it’s not like that in your case Steve,” Peggy’s hiss was loud. “Be logical…”

“I’m an artificial, Peggy,” Steve said again. “I’m meant to be nothing _but_ logical. This is logical.”

“Please don’t do this. We have time. We can work it out.”

“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot more people are going to die. Thousands of people. Peggy, this is my choice and Bucky would…if…” he took a long, shaky, devastated breath, “If Bucky were still here he’d do the same thing.” Silence on the other end of the radio. “Peggy?”

“I’m here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, Steve.”

“I want to use the Disabling Code,” Steve said, voice hushed. “But I need your permission.”

Abraham and Howard had installed two very important codes into Steve. Ones that didn’t even appear in the CAPT-AI-N (America) manual. Only five people had ever known those codes; Steve, Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, Abraham Erskine and Bucky Barnes. And now two of those people were dead. The first of the codes was the Disabling Code; an overriding code that would shut down and lock away the drive that Steve’s consciousness was stored on. It had been intended as a fail-safe in case Steve was ever captured by Hydra; it would lock his mind away so that they couldn’t find the drive, even if they were to take him apart piece by piece, so that they couldn’t figure out what made Steve so remarkable from other Androids; what made him Mecha. It also meant that Steve’s consciousness would be shut down, put on pause, until the Restoring Code - the second special code - was entered. It meant that Steve could disassociate from torture, and basically become no more than any other android, with no personality or free will.

If Steve used the Disabling Code before crashing the train, it meant that his consciousness would be shut down, and he wouldn’t feel the pain of his artificial body as it was destroyed in the train crash.

Steve knew what he was asking of Peggy. He was asking her to help him die.

But there was no woman on Earth stronger than Agent Peggy Carter.

“Steve,” her voice came over the radio, finally, “You have my permission to use the Disabling Code.”

“I won’t be in control after inputting the code, so you will have to order me to crash the train after I’ve inputted it. Peg, I’m sorry, there’s no other way.”

“I know, Steve,” she sounded so devastated. It made Steve’s artificial heart clench. “You’re right. I’ve looked at our feeds and the stats and maps, and if you don’t crash that train…I know there is no other way.”

“I’m going to input the code,” Steve said, voice wavering, knowing that he didn’t have much time left to spare. He lifted his hand to press behind his ear. He felt a patch of his hair retract into his scalp to reveal a number pad. Without looking, he tapped the correct sequence. “Going offline,” Steve warned. “Peggy…didn’t you promise me that you were going to teach me how to dance?”

“I did.”

“Then you owe me a dancing lesson. Next time I see you.”

“The next time, Steve.”

“Goodbye Peggy.”

“Steve…”

Steve pressed the last number and confirmed the Disabling Code. 

And the world went dark.

But this wasn’t death. Because as suddenly as Steve had been switched off, his mind flickered back to life again.

He frowned, confused, as colour and sight burst back into his life. His mouth fell open as he blinked. How the hell was he back? His body and his mind-drive should have been destroyed in the train crash.

And then he managed to focus, and all thoughts of the train fell away as he suddenly realised that he was kneeling between somebody’s legs, and then he stared at the person sitting before him.

The man was wearing black; clothes tight against a broad-shouldered muscular frame; his brunet hair was long and tousled. One of his arms was artificial, replaced by whirring, sliding plates of silver-grey metal, a red star branded on the shoulder. His eyes were smudged with large rings of black camouflage, and they were staring back at him.

Those eyes. Those familiar eyes.

Steve stared in stunned silence. It surely couldn’t be? But it looked just like…

“Bucky?” Steve asked, soft and shell-shocked and so very confused.

How did Bucky look like this? What the hell had happened?

It took Steve an extra second to realise that those familiar eyes before him held no recognition in return. In fact, the man was frowning in confusion.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the man asked, in Bucky’s voice.

“Bucky Barnes?” Steve pressed, reaching forwards and grasping his hands into the leather material of the man’s trousers. “James Buchanan Barnes?”

“I don’t know that name,” the man jerked back from Steve’s touch and stood  up, looking uncomfortable and trapped as he backed away.

“Bucky?” Steve stood and followed him, like a moth to a flame. “It’s me. It’s Steve.”

“You’re Captain America,” the man demanded, gaze raking up and down Steve like he was nervous of him.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Steve replied, taking a step forwards, before freezing and looking down at himself, suddenly realising that he was wearing a pair of blue hot pants and absolutely nothing else. “What?” he choked, before staring around them, freaking out at the sight of an unfamiliar bedroom, with décor and technology in it that he had never, ever seen before. “Bucky, where are we? How the hell did we get here?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the man bit out again, viciously, looking like a cornered, feral animal.

“You are! Don’t you remember? It’s me, Steve!”

“No. I am the Soldat. You are Captain America,” the man before him insisted. “The android prostitute.”

Steve choked in astonishment. “Excuse me?”

But Bucky didn’t expand on that horrifying bombshell. “You were wrong. Broken. I fixed you. A code. I don’t know how.”

Steve could guess how. Somehow, despite clearly not remembering Steve or himself – what the hell had _happened_ to him? – Bucky had inputted Steve’s Restoring Code, bringing the drive holding his consciousness back online.

“Don’t you remember?” Steve tried again, devastated, as this Bucky, this poor man with no memory of him, with his wide eyes and an _arm missing_ , backed away from him, shaking his head in violent denial.

“Soldat!” a voice shouted from outside. Bucky suddenly went rigid, standing ramrod straight, his expression blanked, as a muscular man in black combat gear shouldered his way into the room. “Where the fuck did you go, Soldat?”

And then the newcomer’s gaze fell on Steve.

“Oh I see,” the man smirked, “You’ve tracked down the Captain all on your own. Well, I did say I was going to introduce you, didn’t I? What do you think of Captain America, Soldat?”

Bucky said nothing.

“You were busy when we arrived tonight, darling,” the man said to Steve, reaching out and grasping Steve’s chin, turning his head this way and that. “But duty calls and I gotta get going. I’ll have to have you next time.”

Steve knew that this man was wrong, from first glance. His mind had pieced together enough horrifying evidence to assume that his android form, without its consciousness intact, had somehow been put to work in some kind of brothel, and that this man had been a previous client. It was safer for Steve and Bucky both for Steve to pretend that Bucky hadn’t just miraculously restored his memory, despite apparently having absolutely no memory of who he and Steve were.

“Next. Time. Yes. Sir.” Steve said in the stilted robotic voice of an android, trying to keep his eyes on the stranger, and not on Bucky – or the Soldat – who was still watching him with wide-eyed shock and confusion.

“Good boy,” the man leered at him, dragging his thumb over Steve’s bottom lip and then releasing him. “Let’s go, Soldat.”

Bucky - the Soldat - tore his gaze from Steve as he turned on his heel and marched out.

“He didn’t recognise you,” the man informed Steve, looking pleased. “But then, there’s nothing going on up here anymore is there,” he prodded the side of Steve’s head. “Either of you.”

Steve had to bite his tongue and force his lip from curling. “I. Do. Not. Know. What. You. Mean. Sir.”

The man smirked. “Of course you don’t. Just a pretty face these days, aren’t we Captain? See you next time.”

The moment that the man walked away, Steve started off after them. He was afraid to lose sight of Bucky – because it _was_ Bucky, memory or no. He flung himself out of the door and weaved his way down unfamiliar corridors to an unfamiliar room with strange holograms and a room full of people.

“Hey Captain?” a red-headed woman moved swiftly to block Steve’s way. She looked like she had seen a ghost, her expression haunted and grim. “Those men you were just with...”

“Sorry, excuse me, please I’ve gotta…”

The red haired woman’s eyes widened in surprise at the sound of his voice and his reaction. “Mr Rogers?” she asked suddenly, uncertainly, excitedly.

Steve started in shock, and he wanted to ask her, ask her what the hell was going on, but he couldn’t lose sight of Bucky. He couldn’t lose him again. How was Bucky _alive_? Steve saw him fall off that train, fall down the side of that mountain, because Steve couldn’t reach his hand.

“No, no I can’t I’m sorry I have to find him…” he darted around her and sprinted out of the exit and into the street, eyes searching wildly for where Bucky and the other man had gone. He couldn’t see them anywhere.

There was a group of protestors standing outside the brothel with signs, led by an old man with a moustache and dark glasses, but Steve did not stop to read any of the signs, or hear what any of them called to him as he left the brothel.

Because that was when Steve started running. He ran and ran. He was wearing nothing but hot pants, and was getting stares from every direction. But he didn’t care. He had to get to Bucky…he had to help Bucky…he had to save…he was forced to abruptly judder to a stop to avoid being taken out by some kind of hovering vehicle. And that was when Steve stopped. And realisation truly hit him. Steve stared. Steve gaped. Steve finally began to take in what was going on around him.

Vehicles were hovering, large hologram advertisements were showing off the latest ‘Mecha’, with pictures that looked just like photographs of humans. It was only then that Steve realised that he hadn’t just been running through large crowds of humans; some of those people had been Mecha. Mecha so realistic that they blended in completely. There were people with mechanical limbs unlike Steve had ever seen. There were people using technology Steve couldn’t have dreamt up in his wildest dreams. He stood, turning on the spot, eyes wide. He had never felt so out of his depth. Not even when he had woken up in his new body. Not even then.

The world as he knew it had gone. Bucky as he knew him had gone. Time had passed, but how much time had Steve lost? And how long had Bucky been that…that _Soldat?_ And for how long had Steve’s body been used, not been his own to control? The panic started to rise, the panic started to consume and…

“At ease, soldier.”

Steve whipped around to look at the person who had spoken, to find a man with an eye patch moving towards him slowly, hands raised in a placating manner, like he thought that Steve might bolt. Behind the man stood the red haired woman that had called Steve ‘Mr Rogers’ at the brothel. She was wearing tight brothel-esque clothing too, but wasn’t as bared to the world as Steve. As new and naked to this world as Steve.

Steve could have felt self-conscious, but there were far more pressing matters at hand. “Where am I?”

“Mr Rogers, may I call you Steve? Steve…”

“Where am I?” Steve repeated, the panic and confusion tightening his voice.

“New York City.”

Steve glanced around wildly. This  _place_ was _New York_?! “Who are you? How long have I been gone?”

“My name is Nick Fury, this is Natasha Romanoff. You’ve been gone for a while, Cap.”

“How long?” Steve asked, terrified to know the answer and yet resigned to the shock it might bring. “How long have I been gone?”

“Almost seventy years.”

“ _Seventy_?” Steve gasped out, looking around him in horror. “Seventy years?” But then how did Bucky look like he hadn’t aged a day? “That can’t be right…”

“I’m sorry Cap, but I’m telling you the truth.”

“But the world has changed…” Steve continued, trailing off as his newly-reawakened mind went into overdrive. How was it _possible?_

“And it still needs saving,” Nick Fury said, “If you’re up for the job.”

 

****_Confidential File - Director Nick Fury_ ** **

****_PROPOSED CANDIDATES FOR THE MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE:_ ** **

**NAME:** _Steven Grant ‘Steve’ Rogers_  
 **ALIAS:** _CAPT-AI-N (America)_  
 **PROFESSION:** _Mecha solider, Great Technology War_  
 **CLASSIFICATION:** _Original_ _Mecha (specialised/unique – human consciousness inside artificial body)_  
 **MANUFACTURER (if applicable):** _Dr Erskine and Stark Industries_  
 **CURRENT LOCATION:** _Known – New York_  
 **STATUS:** _Currently in Android state. Has no free will. Possibly under Hydra influence._

  
**NOTES:**

_\- The first known Mecha. However, while every other Mecha is an Android with enhanced receptors - able to create their own feelings, memories, personalities - Rogers is the only Mecha in history to have had a human consciousness preserved on a chip and installed into an Android body. Believed to be a one-off miracle that the chip even took to the body. No other scientist has succeeded in replicating Rogers’ form of Mecha. The closest has been Dr Bruce Banner’s consciousness-transferral with The Hulk._

_\- CAPT-AI-N (America) was reported to have been destroyed crashing a Hydra train full of explosives in the final months of the Great Technology War. It is now believed that CAPT-AI-N (America) was taken from the wreckage by Hydra, possibly abandoned and later rediscovered. An Android that S.H.I.E.L.D: A.R.M.E.D thinks to be CAPT-AI-N (America) was sold by a known Hydra agent as a prostitute (called Captain America) to an Android brothel in Brooklyn a year ago and has been there ever since._

_\- Observations made by Agent Romanoff suggest that CAPT-AI-N (America) no longer has access to the consciousness of Steve Rogers so is no longer sentient and is currently a mere subservient Android. Whether this access can be restored is unknown._

_\- WARNING: Several series of Androids and Mecha in the past sixty years have been purposefully modelled to look like Steve Rogers to honour the CAPT-AI-N (America) Original Mecha model, including one of the earliest Johnny Storm models of the Human Torch brand in the Fantastic 4 Series. Do not get lookalike models confused for the real CAPT-AI-N (America)._

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Confidential File_

_Director Nick Fury_

_The MechAvengers Initiative_

_S.H.I.E.L.D (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division)_

_A.R.M.E.D (Artificial Reestablishment, Management and Engagement Department)_

 

_**OFFICIAL INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATIONS:** _

_**Human:**  Human with no significant robotic/artificial adaptations or biomechatronic parts_   
_**Adapted Human:**  Human with robotic/artificial adaptation of less than 30% of vital body and organs (incl. Artificial Organs, robotic/biomechatronic limbs etc.)_   
_**Cyborg:**  Human with both organic and significant biomechatronic parts (over 30% of vital body and organs)_   
_**Android:** Insentient humanoid robot, incapable of own thoughts/decisions **  
Mecha:** Sentient humanoid androids capable of making own decisions/ artificial consciousness _   
_**Enhanced Mecha:**  Sentient Mecha enhanced by exposure to illegal programs (i.e. Dark Web, Bifrost, Deep Space)_   
_**Original Mecha:**  Human consciousness implanted inside an artificial/android body (only 2 known cases)_   
_**Robot:**  Insentient machines, mostly programmed by computers_   
_**AI (Artificial Intelligence)** : Computer systems _

 

_**MECHAVENGERS INITIATIVE TEAM MEMBERS/ASSOCIATED PERSONNEL CLASSIFICATIONS:** _

_**Human:** Nick Fury, Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts, James Rhodes_   
_**Adapted Human:** Clint Barton_   
_**Cyborg:** Tony Stark_   
_**Android:** Phil Coulson, Iron Man suits (un-manned)_   
_**Mecha:** Natasha Romanoff, Happy Hogan, Maria Hill_   
_**Enhanced Mecha:** Thor, Loki_   
_**Original Mecha:** Steve Rogers, the Hulk* (*process only partially successful)_   
_**Robot:** DUM-E, U etc. (Stark Industries)_   
_**AI:** JARVIS (Stark Industries)_

_New note: **MECHAVENGERS TEAM ASSEMBLED**_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Any comments, kudos and bookmarks are greatly loved and appreciated.
> 
> If you would like to read Steve's origin story in full detail and from Bucky's POV, make sure to check out Part 1 of this series - 'CAPT-AI-N (America): The First Mecha'. 
> 
> I know that Tony's section in this chapter is much shorter than the others', but his story required the least editing to fit the AU, and he will get a lot of POV in the next chapter. Promise <3 
> 
> Please make sure to bookmark my 'The Marvel Mecha Universe' series if you fancy being kept updated; future parts will be titled 'The Winter Cyborg', 'The Ultra Anti-Mecha Age' and 'The Infinite Civilian War' and will introduce everyone else, and I am already super excited to write Peter Parker's and Peter Quill's stories.


End file.
